Today considered one of the best comedies in the history of
television, The Andy Griffith Show
began as a concept by producer Sheldon Leonard and writer Art Stander of The Danny Thomas Show about a small-town
sheriff who also served as justice of the peace and newspaper editor, as
described by University of Tennessee professor Richard Kelly in his book about
the show. At the time they came up with their idea, Andy Griffith was appearing
in a Broadway production of Destry Rides
Again but had just been signed by the William Morris Agency and had told
them he was interested in exploring a career in television. After hearing about
Griffith's availability and seeing him in Destry,
Leonard set up a meeting with Griffith, but Griffith was not keen on the
concept, though he years later told Kelly that he liked Leonard himself. A
second meeting was set up with the principals and Griffith's manager Richard O.
Linke, and though Griffith still had reservations about the concept, he agreed
to do a pilot for the new show as an episode of The Danny Thomas Show in which Thomas drives through the small town
where Griffith is sheriff and is arrested for speeding. Though Griffith said
that he was a bit wooden in rehearsals, he eventually got the hang of things by
the time they were filming in front of a live audience, and the show went over
well, so well, in fact, that Danny Thomas
sponsor General Foods agreed to sponsor The
Andy Griffith Show immediately.
But Griffith still had a few doubts about the show as
conceived by Leonard and Stander, and these had to be addressed before
development could begin. First, Griffith did not like the idea of his character
wearing three hats and farcically changing his outfit based on which function
he was serving at the time. By the time
The
Andy Griffith Show made it to the air, this conceit had largely been
eliminated, though he continued his justice of the peace role in episodes such
as "Andy and the Woman Speeder" (October 16, 1961) where he tickets a
female journalist in a hurry to get out of town and when she refuses to pay the
fine and demands to take her case before the justice of the peace, she meets
Andy at the jailhouse and he turns his desk sign around from Andy Taylor,
Sheriff to Andy Taylor, Justice of the Peace. The other idea that Griffith was
against was the structure of typical television situation comedy in which plot
development is used merely to set up jokes and one-liners, whereas Griffith
believed that comedy should flow from the characters and the situations in
which they find themselves. Since Linke was able to borrow enough money to
finance the show initially, he was able to structure Griffith's contract so
that he owned half the show and Linke had the position of associate producer.
In this capacity, Griffith was able to provide input during story development
and script writing, which he did on a regular basis. Kelly maintains that
Griffith's involvement was the primary factor in the show's success and
ground-breaking position as a hybrid situation/domestic comedy.
In the pilot episode and in its original conception,
Griffith was supposed to be the one getting the laughs, but after bringing
Don
Knotts on to play Deputy Barney Fife, Griffith soon realized that the show would
be better with him playing straight man to Knotts' mercurial portrayal of
Barney. Knotts' comedic skill was so dominant that he won the Emmy for Best
Supporting Actor in a Comedy three years straight from 1961-63 and twice more
when he was brought back for guest spots after leaving at the end of the fifth
season. Some fans believe that the show declined after he left, his departure
the result of a miscommunication and change of plans by Griffith, who had
originally intended for the show to run only 5 seasons. By the time the end of
that span was approaching, Knotts sought opportunities elsewhere and received
an offer from Universal Pictures for a 5-movie deal. When Griffith then decided
to continue the series and asked Knotts to come along, Knotts had already
acclimated himself to a movie career and was worried he might never get another
offer like the one from Universal.
But while the show was strong on comic male characters like
Barney, town drunk Otis Campbell, and barber Floyd Lawson, its female
contingent, as Kelly has remarked, tended to be rather passive in a
traditionally female way. Aunt Bee is a stereotypical home-maker, and when she
stands up against Andy in suggesting that a jailhouse is not a proper
environment to raise a boy in "Bringing Up Opie" (May 22, 1961), she
has to retract her admonishment after Opie gets in much worse trouble when left
to his own devices. However, she wins a small amount of satisfaction when she
proves that men are just as bad about gossiping as women in "Those
Gosspin' Men" (January 16, 1961). Barney's girlfriend Thelma Lou is first
introduced in "Cyrano Andy" (March 6, 1961) and her role as his
long-suffering and forever waiting soul mate is cemented when she tries to
force the issue in getting Barney to express his affection for her by
pretending that Andy is a rival for her attention. When Barney stubbornly
refuses to give in and says that he wants to play the field, Andy foils her
plot when he pretends to gladly accept her faux advances while his girlfriend
Ellie Walker gives Barney the same treatment, thereby driving the two love
birds back into each other's arms and restoring the status quo of Thelma Lou as
the Lady in Waiting. In fact, the character of Ellie Walker is the only strong
female character in the early cast, standing up to Andy in "Mayberry on
Record" (February 13, 1961) to show him that he is wrong in suspecting a
traveling record producer of being a con man, and manipulating him to help her
rescue a young woman from a life of hard farm labor in "Ellie Saves a
Female" (April 17, 1961), even if the rescuing is merely allowing the
young woman to wear makeup and pretty clothes to attract a husband. And in an
episode from 1960, Ellie runs for and wins a spot on the City Council despite
strong opposition from the town's chauvinistic male population, including Andy.
But
Elinor Donahue, who signed a 3-year contract for
The Andy Griffith Show, asked to be let out of her contract after
the first season. Kelly relates that Griffith admitted that the show had a problem
finding a suitable romantic partner for him because of his discomfort in
dealing with women and difficulty in playing romantic scenes. Various actresses
were tried out in her place. In Season 2, former
Gene Autry acolyte
Gail Davis
appears as Thelma Lou's cousin in "The Perfect Female" (November 27,
1961). But after Barney and Thelma Lou try to hook her up with Andy, Davis'
character Karen Moore bristles at the idea that she has to audition for Andy's
approval and shows him up by beating him in a skeet shooting contest. Like
Ellie, Karen has a strong personality and excels at a traditionally male sport,
and though everyone is on friendly terms by episode's end when Andy has
admitted that he was wrong, Davis did not appear in another episode. It wasn't
until
Aneta Corsaut was introduced as Opie's mild-mannered, reserved school
teacher in 1963 that the show found a character and actress who could work with
Griffith's temperament.
Even with its conservative depiction of the role of women
while demands for equal treatment have continually grown stronger in the real
world, the show has remained popular because at its core, as Kelly also
astutely observes, the characters genuinely care for each other, even if their
opinions and beliefs may occasionally be misguided. Mayberry has come to be a
nostalgic symbol for an idyllic world where there is virtually no crime because
everyone is really just trying to get by. Rather than being the tough-on-crime,
no-nonsense lawman that Barney imagines himself to be, Andy Taylor is always
compassionate, arguing against eviction for folks who are just down on their
luck in "Andy Forecloses" (April 24, 1961) and "Mayberry Goes
Bankrupt" (October 23, 1961). As Kelly notes, Griffith had an ally in
writer and story consultant Aaron Ruben (later the creator and producer of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.), who understood
and valued the nuanced relationships between the characters in the fictional tight-knit
southern town. When Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley producer Garry
Marshall approached Griffith years later about developing a new series for him
and Don Knotts, both actors were initially interested, but Griffith eventually
declined when the sample script Marshall showed him had his and Knotts'
characters making fun of each other at the other's expense. Knotts thought the
problems Griffith indentified could be fixed, but Griffith felt that Marshall
really didn't understand their characters and saw no reason to do business
together. From the beginning, Griffith's instincts had proven correct about the
way to build a comedy that will pass the test of time.
The theme song for
The
Andy Griffith Show was composed by
Earle Hagen, who is profiled in the 1960
post for
The Barbara Stanwyck Show.
The complete series has been released on DVD by Paramount
Home Video.
The Actors
Andy Griffith
Andy Samuel Griffith was born the same day as actress
Marilyn Monroe in 1926 in Mount Airy, North Carolina, an only child to a
carpenter and home-maker. Because his family initially could not afford a home
of their own, the infant Griffith was cared for by relatives and at one point
was sleeping in a dresser drawer. Years later he still recalled as a youth
being stung by the epithet "white trash." Griffith developed an
interest in music from an early age and was taught to play the guitar by his
mother. After seeing jazz trombonist Jack Teagarden in the 1941 feature film Birth of the Blues, Griffith persuaded
Baptist minister Ed Mickey to teach him to play the trombone (Teagarden would
later have a bit part in the 1961 Andy
Griffith Show episode "Sheriff Barney"). While in high school
Griffith also developed an interest in acting, participating in his school's
drama program. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
from which he graduated with a degree in music in 1949. While performing there
as part of the school's Carolina Playmakers, Griffith met his first wife,
dancer Barbara Edwards, as well as character actor R.G. Armstrong (who would
later appear in the 1961 Andy Griffith
Show episode "Ellie Saves a Female"). He also performed in school
operettas and considered a career as an opera singer after graduation but ended
up teaching music at Goldsboro High School. He and Barbara also developed an
act for local civic groups in which she danced and he played a country preacher
who told jokes. Out of these performances Griffith developed a series of comic
monologues and in 1953 pressed 500 records of a bit called "What It Was,
Was Football," in which he plays someone unfamiliar with the game trying
to explain its complex rules. The record was a local hit on radio and caught
the attention of Capitol Records executive Richard O. Linke, who rushed to
North Carolina to acquire the rights and sign Griffith to a contract. Linke
would go on to be Griffith's manager for the rest of his life, as well as an
associate producer on The Andy Griffith
Show. Griffith credited Linke with steering his career in a successful
direction that he could not have managed himself. Released on Capitol, the
record sold over 900,000 copies and was a top 10 hit in 1954. The following
year Griffith was cast as naive country Air Force recruit Will Stockdale in the
teleplay "No Time for Sergeants," which appeared on The U.S. Steel Hour. The play was then
adapted for Broadway, where it ran for two years, earned him a Tony nomination,
and included Don Knotts in the cast. The play would eventually become a feature
film in 1958 with Griffith and Knotts retained in the cast. But Griffith would
make his film debut a year earlier in 1957 in Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd in which he would play a rough folk singer
turned into a celebrity by his handlers and then a megalomaniac who proves to
be his own undoing. Griffith's character Larry Rhodes is said to have been
loosely based on Arthur Godfrey. In 1959 Griffith returned to Broadway to star
in the latest production of Destry Rides
Again, which is where he was spotted by producer Sheldon Leonard and
recruited to play the role of Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show.
When he finally left his eponymous series, Griffith had
intended to launch a movie career but found himself the victim of type-casting
for many years--producers couldn't see him as anybody but Andy Taylor, though
Griffith's real-life personality was somewhat different from the character that
made him a household name. Griffith was said to have been more of a loner, a
very private man prone to worrying. Though he maintained life-long friendships
with cast-mates Don Knotts and
Ron Howard, as well as other actors like
Dick
Van Dyke and Armstrong, he also revealed in an interview that
Frances Bavier
did not like him, though he did not explain why. In any case, with his
hoped-for film career failing to materialize, Griffith attempted to return to
TV in the 1970s but failed to find the old magic on series like
Headmaster and
The New Andy Griffith Show. Besides an occasional guest appearance
on TV series, he began turning to TV movies, some with him cast in darker
roles, such as 1974's
Savages. In the
late 1970s he appeared in a number of mini-series, including
Washington: Behind Closed Doors,
Centennial, and
Roots: The Next Generations. He continued working on TV movies in
the 1980s and won his only Primetime Emmy for his role as the father of a
murder victim in 1981's
Murder in Texas.
After recovering from a 1986 attack of Guillain-Barre syndrome, which left his
lower legs paralyzed and unable to walk, Griffith launched his second
successful TV series
Matlock later
that year. The series ran for 9 seasons--one more than
The Andy Griffith Show. He reprised his role as Ben Matlock in a
two-episode story on friend Van Dyke's
Diagnosis
Murder in 1997. Though Griffith had recorded a handful of albums during the
1950s and '60s, he returned to recording more prolifically in the 1990s and won
a Grammy in 1996 for his gospel album
I
Love to Tell the Story: 25 Timeless Hymns. He continued appearing in
occasional films and TV episodes until age 83, his last credit being in the
2009 feature film
Play the Game. Griffith
had an 11-mile stretch of highway named after him in North Carolina, has a star
on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame,
and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by
George W. Bush in 2005. A
life-long supporter of Democratic politics, in 2010 he appeared in a series of
commercials promoting the Affordable Care Act, but the commercials were canceled
after he received numerous death threats. Two years later he suffered a fatal
heart attack on July 3, 2012 at the age of 86.
Ron Howard
Ronald William Howard was born in Duncan, Oklahoma to
Rance
and Jean Speegle Howard, both actors. Rance Howard had studied drama at the
University of Oklahoma and was a director of entertainment programs while
serving in the Air Force. Ron Howard made his first appearance on film at 18
months in a movie in which his father also had a role, 1956's
Frontier Woman. At age 2 he appeared in
a theatrical production of
The Seven Year
Itch, and in 1958 his father moved the family to Hollywood, taking a house
only one block away from Desilu Studios, where
The Andy Griffith Show would be filmed. In 1959, Ron Howard began
getting a series of TV appearances on programs such as
Five Fingers,
Johnny Ringo,
and
The Twilight Zone. He played Opie
Taylor in the back-door pilot for
The
Andy Griffith Show on
The Danny
Thomas Show. Also at this time he appeared 6 times as Stewart on
Dennis the Menace and played various
small boys in 4 episodes of
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, in addition to single episodes of
Cheyenne and
Pete and Gladys. Both Sheldon Leonard and Don Knotts have since
remarked about what a natural, adaptable actor young Howard was and both
consider his father, who was on the set with him, as being the primary reason
for his success. During his 8 years on
The
Andy Griffith Show, Howard also made occasional appearances in feature
films, such as
The Music Man and
The Courtship of Eddie's Father, and he
would also show up as a guest on TV programs such as
Route 66,
Dr. Kildare,
The Fugitive, and
I Spy. For his 8th birthday Howard was given an 8-millimeter movie
camera by Griffith, Linke, and Ruben, which undoubtedly led to an early
fondness for making movies.
After his 8 years on
The
Andy Griffith Show, Howard was eager to break out of his Opie Taylor
persona, appearing as a guest on TV dramas such as
The F.B.I.,
Land of the
Giants, and
Gunsmoke. His next
regular role was playing Henry Fonda's son in
The Smith Family during 1971-72, but it was a guest spot on
Love American Style that would lead to
his next big starring role as Richie Cunningham, first in the episode
"Love and the TV Set" (since renamed "Love and the Happy Days").
Before the series
Happy Days was
launched in 1974, Howard also appeared in George Lucas' 1950s nostalgia feature
American Graffiti. Howard was not
especially enthused about his role on
Happy
Days, but during his 7 years on the show he began taking the necessary
steps toward his preferred vocation--directing. He worked out a deal with
legendary B-movie director
Roger Corman to appear in Corman's 1976
Eat My Dust in return for Corman
producing Howard's directorial debut, 1977's
Grand Theft Auto. After directing a few TV movies, he reunited with
Henry Winkler on the decidedly adult-themed
Night
Shift in 1982. After another TV movie in 1983, Howard achieved his greatest
directorial success to date with the romantic comedy
Splash in 1984, followed by a series of other successes with
Cocoon,
Willow,
Parenthood,
Apollo 13, and culminating with an Oscar
for Best Director and Best Picture for 2001's
A Beautiful Mind. He received a second Oscar nomination but did not
win for 2008's
Frost/Nixon. Howard
has also garnered a pair of Primteime Emmys, the first for the 1998 mini-series
From the Earth to the Moon and a
second for co-creating and narrating the comedy series
Arrested Development. His daughters
Bryce Dallas Howard and
Paige
Howard have continued the family's acting dynasty into a third generation.
Don Knotts
Jesse Donald Knotts was born in Morgantown, West Virginia,
the youngest of four sons to a shizophrenic/alcoholic father who once
threatened his wife with a knife, spent some time in a psychiatric hospital, and
died from pneumonia when Don was only 13. His mother then ran a boarding house
to support herself and her sons. His brother William Earl Knotts died four
years later at age 31 from complications from asthma. Knotts has recounted that
he had an unhappy childhood and felt like a loser, but in his early years he
began to develop a ventriloquist act that he would perform at various functions
around Morgantown. After graduating from high school, he went to New York to
pursue a show business career but returned home within a few weeks. He enrolled
at West Virginia University until joining the Army in 1943. In the Army he was
assigned to provide entertainment for the troops, but in a later interview he
said that it was during this time that he decided to ditch the ventriloquist
act, throwing his dummy Danny "Hootch" Matador overboard from a ship
in the Pacific. After he returned home from service, he returned to West
Virginia University and after graduating with a degree in drama he returned to
New York and used contacts he had made in the military to land gigs doing
stand-up comedy in clubs and then play a character Windy Wales on the radio
show The Bobby Benson Show. He landed
his first TV role on the soap opera Search
for Tomorrow from 1953-55, playing a neurotic young man who communicated
only with his sister. In 1955 he first met up with Griffith during the
theatrical production of No Time for
Sergeants. The following year he landed a regular supporting role as Mr.
Morrison, a nervous man who did not like to be interviewed on camera as part of
Steve Allen's "Man in the Street" recurring sketch on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show, a role he
continued until 1960. Knotts said that he developed the character after seeing
a nervous man attempt to give a speech back in Morgantown. He first performed
it on The Garry Moore Show and then
got a chance to audition for Steve Allen through a friendship with Bill Dana,
who was on Allen's staff. In 1958 he made his feature film debut alongside
Griffith in the big screen version of No Time
for Sergeants and after Steve Allen's show was canceled and he heard that
Griffith was starting a new series, he called Griffith and suggested that as
sheriff he could use a deputy. After auditioning his nervous character for
Sheldon Leonard, Knotts was signed to a 5-year contract for a role that earned
him 5 Primetime Emmys and would make him a comic legend. However, even during
his 5 years on The Andy Griffith Show
Knotts added to his feature film resume, appearing in Wake Me When It's Over, The
Last Time I Saw Archie, It's a Mad,
Mad, Mad, Mad World, and Move Over,
Darling. Playing the title role in 1964's The Incredible Mr. Limpet, Knotts had his first starring role in a
feature film. As mentioned above his departure from The Andy Griffith Show was due to a communication mix-up with
Griffith, who told him at the outset that the program would run for no more
than 5 years.
After leaving
The Andy
Griffith Show Knotts starred in a series of comedies that saw him adapting
his nervous character to various situations in
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken,
The
Reluctant Astronaut,
The Shakiest Gun
in the West,
The Love God?, and
How to Frame a Figg. Though current
comedic actors such as
Jim Carrey and
Martin Short credit Knotts as an
inspiration, the films did not score big at the box office and Universal
terminated his contract at the end of the 5-picture deal. Knotts' career waned
somewhat at this point, punctuated only by occasional TV movies and guest
appearances, until he found steady work in the mid 1970s in a series of Disney
family films, a few with
Tim Conway, such as
The Apple Dumpling Gang,
No
Deposit, No Return,
Gus,
Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo,
Hot Lead, Cold Feet, and
The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again. When
Audra Lindley and
Norman Fell's characters were spun off from
Three's Company into their own series,
The Ropers, Knotts was brought on as the
new landlord as middle-aged swinger wannabe Ralph Furley, a role he continued
until the series ended in 1984. His work through the later 1980s was
sporadic--a Mayberry reunion TV movie
Return
to Mayberry and four appearances as F. Jerry McPherson on
What a Country--until he was reunited
with Griffith as Matlock's pesky neighbor Les Calhoun on
Matlock from 1988-92. His late career work dwindled even further,
often appearing as variations of earlier characters--a landlord in a 2005
episode of
That '70's Show--or
voicework for animated productions and video games. He developed a number of
health issues, including macular degeneration, late in life and finally
succumbed to lung cancer on February 24, 2006 at the age of 81. Like Ron
Howard, a sixth cousin, Knotts has a daughter,
Karen Knotts, currently working
as an actress in feature films.
Frances Bavier
Born in New York City,
Frances Elizabeth Bavier attended
Columbia University and at first had planned to become a teacher but later
graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and found work in
vaudeville, stock repertory groups that toured the midwest, and eventually
Broadway. There she appeared in productions such as
The Poor Nut,
On Borrowed
Time, and
Point of No Return with
Henry Fonda. Though she had a pair of feature film appearances in 1931's
Girls About Town and 1943's
O. My Darling Clementine, her film
career took off in 1951 with appearances in the science fiction classic
The Day the Earth Stood Still, the
Martin & Lewis farce
The Stooge,
and her first aunt role in support of
David Niven and
Joan Caulfield in
The Lady Says No. Her first television
appearance came in a 1952 episode of
Racket
Squad and by 1953 she was finding more work on TV than in feature films.
Her first recurring role on television came in 1954 playing doting home-maker Mrs.
Amy Morgan who runs a boarding house, home to a pair of ex-G.I.'s in
It's a Great Life. The show ran for two
seasons, after which Bavier found occasional guest spots, including a
first-season episode of
Perry Mason,
before being cast as Nora the housekeeper on
The Eve Arden Show in 1957. She continued occasional guest spots
thereafter on shows such as
Wagon Train,
Sugarfoot, and
Rawhide before appearing as Henrietta Perkins in
The Danny Thomas Show episode that
served as the pilot for
The Andy Griffith
Show. Though she felt that the role of Aunt Bee didn't take advantage of
her full dramatic range, she is the only main actor who stayed with the show
the full 8 seasons and continued with its sequel
Mayberry R.F.D. for two more seasons. She was remembered both by
associate producer Richard O. Linke and actor
Jack Dodson (who played Howard
Sprague in later seasons) as a private, very contained individual who could be
easily offended. Dodson would tell author Richard Kelly, "She was the only
person in the whole company whose feelings you had to be careful not to
hurt." Besides Don Knotts, she was also the only member of the cast to win
an Emmy, garnering the Best Supporting Actress award in 1967.
After leaving Mayberry
R.F.D. in 1970, Bavier made only one more acting appearance as a woman with
a cat in the 1974 feature Benji, an
ironic twist given the state of her home upon her death. Despite being from New
York, she retired to Siler, North Carolina in 1972, drawn by its natural
beauty, and was described by neighbors as a recluse who rarely left her house,
though for a time she was active promoting Christmas Seals and Easter Seals. In
November 1989 she was admitted to a local hospital and was placed in the
coronary ward with heart disease and cancer. After a two-week stay she was
discharged and returned home, where she died two days later from a heart attack at the age of 86 on December 6,
1989. Her obituary in the Los Angeles
Times went on at length about the sparse, decrepit, and unkempt condition
of her house, which she shared with 14 cats, who used a basement room and a
shower stall as a litter box. Her 1966 Studebaker, a brand of automobile she
avidly supported, was parked in her garage with four flat tires and an interior
shredded by the cats. Never married and with no heirs, she left her $700,000
estate to a hospital foundation.
Howard McNear
Howard Terbell McNear was born in Los Angeles and studied
acting at the Oatman School of Theater. He honed his dramatic skills as a
member of a San Diego stock company, where, according to Griffith, he was a
leading man. In the 1930s he began finding work in radio dramas such as
Speed Gibson of the International Secret
Police. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942, and after the War
moved to Hollywood where he was cast as Doc Adams in the radio version of
Gunsmoke, which ran from 1952-61 (he appeared
in 6 episodes of the TV version, the last 3 as Howard Rudd). He also played a
variety of roles in the radio detective series
Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar from 1955-60. His career on film began
with an uncredited role in the western
Escape
From Fort Bravo in 1953, and his first appearance on television came the
next year in an episode of
Dragnet. From
that point forward, he found steady work in supporting roles on TV and in
feature films such as
Bundle of Joy,
Bell, Book and Candle,
Anatomy of a Murder, and
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. His
first recurring TV role came as Cuthbert Jantzen on
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show in 1957-58. He crossed paths
with Frances Bavier appearing in a 1956 episode of
It's a Great Life and appeared in many other TV series as well,
including
Lassie,
I Love Lucy,
December Bride,
The People's
Choice,
Leave It to Beaver (on
which he played a barber),
The Donna Reed Show,
The Real McCoys, and
Peter Gunn, to name but a few. Griffith
said that McNear was a nervous man by nature and that he developed his nervous
character that evolved into Floyd Lawson while on
The Jack Benny Program, on which he appeared 7 times between 1958
and 1962.
McNear made his first appearance
as Floyd the barber in the first episode aired in 1961, "Mayberry Goes
Hollywood" (January 2, 1961). (
Walter Baldwin had made a single appearance
as Floyd in the 1960 episode "Stranger in Town.") During his tenure
on
The Andy Griffith Show, McNear
continued finding regular work in feature films, including three
Elvis Presley
vehicles (
Blue Hawaii,
Follow That Dream, and
Fun in Acapulco), three
Billy Wilder
films (
Irma la Douce,
Kiss Me, Stupid, and
The Fortune Cookie),
and comedies starring such TV stars as
James
Garner (
The Wheeler Dealers),
Troy
Donahue (
My Blood Runs Cold), and
Ricky Nelson (
Love and Kisses). He
also appeared on a variety of TV programs such as
The Twilight Zone,
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and
Honey West.
During
The Andy Griffith Show's third season McNear suffered a stroke that
paralyzed most of the left side of his body and did not appear on the show for
nearly two years. But producer Aaron Ruben was determined to bring him back,
and so scripts were written to either have him sitting down or secretly propped
up by structures built by the production crew in order to accommodate his
disability. However, his delivery over time grew slower and slower, and Jack
Dodson recalled his last appearance in a 1967 episode where he had great
difficulty remembering his lines, causing him great frustration and despair, as
being one of the most troubling scenes he ever witnessed. A second stroke
killed him on January 3, 1969 at the age of 63.
Hal Smith
Though he will forever be known as Otis Campbell, the
affable town drunk of Mayberry, teetotaler
Harold John Smith, born in Petoskey,
Michigan, actually had a more prolific career as a voice actor for countless
cartoons, commercials, and radio dramas. His family moved to Massena, New York,
where he graduated from high school. His mother was a seamstress, and his
father worked in the local Alcoa plant. He worked as a radio DJ and voice
talent for WBIX in Utica, New York after graduating from high school. His agent
Don Pitts said that he also sang with big bands in the 1930s. In 1943 he joined
the U.S. Army's Special Services branch, responsible for entertaining the
troops during World War II. After finishing his service, he relocated to Los
Angeles, where he first worked as a staff announcer at KFI and eventually began
to get minor roles in feature films, his first playing a peddler in
Stars Over Texas in 1946. Roles were
scarce during his early years, but things began picking up around 1952, which
included his first television appearance on the series
Life With Elizabeth. That year also marked his first appearance as
Charlie Henderson on
I Married Joan,
and he would return in the role for 5 more episodes in 1954. The latter 1950s
included a spate of uncredited feature film roles and occasional TV spots on
The Great Gildersleeve,
Broken Arrow, and
Tombstone Territory before landing another minor recurring role as
Hickey in 6 episodes of
Jefferson Drum
in 1958. The following year marked the beginning of his long and prolific voice
acting career, appearing in 51 episodes of
Clutch
Cargo as well as multiple episodes of
The
Huckleberry Hound Show and
Quick Draw
McGraw. In 1960 he began appearing in voice roles on
The Flintstones, eventually becoming the regular voice of Fred
Flintstone's father Tex, and he replaced the late
Arthur Q. Bryan as the voice
of Elmer Fudd for the next two years. His first of 32 appearances as Otis
Campbell on
The Andy Griffith Show
came in the 1960 episode "The Manhunt."
During his tenure on
Griffith,
Smith also found steady work appearing in other live-action TV programs, such
as
Peter Gunn,
Dennis the Menace,
Have Gun -- Will Travel, and
Perry Mason.
He played Santa Claus in the 1960 feature
The
Miracle of the White Reindeer, King Thesus of Rhodes in
The Three Stooges Meet Hercules, and the
Mayor of Boracho in
The Great Race.
He voiced three different characters in
The
Funny Company in 1963, was the voice of Engineer Taurus (said to be the
inspiration for Star Trek's Mr. Scott) on
Space
Angel, and voiced Yappee and The King on
The Peter Potamus Show. He also voiced Goliath and several other
characters on the long-running cartoon series
Davey and Goliath, and in 1966 became the voice of Owl in the Walt
Disney
Winnie the Pooh animated
shorts and features. After
Sterling Holloway's death, he also took turns with
another actor providing the voice for Pooh himself. His other longest-running
voice role was host John Avery Whittaker in Focus on the Family's radio drama
Adventures in Odyssey from the show's
inception in 1987 until just before Smith's death at the age of 77 on January
28, 1994, two years after his wife of 53 years had passed away. According to
his manager Pitts, he was listening to a radio drama when he passed.
Betty Lynn
Elizabeth Ann Theresa Lynn was born in Kansas City, the
daughter of a singer, began her career singing in supper clubs and acting in
radio dramas, eventually appearing on Broadway in musicals and dramatic roles
before being discovered in a production of
Park
Avenue by
Darryl F. Zanuck and signed to a contract by 20th Century Fox.
Her film career kicked off in 1948 with appearances supporting
Clifton Webb in
Sitting Pretty,
Jeanne Crain and
William
Holden in
Apartment for Peggy, and
Bette Davis in
June Bride. Over the
next four years she appeared in such light comedies as
Mother Is a Freshman,
Father
Was a Fullback, and
Cheaper by the
Dozen, but her film career slowed in the early 1950s and she began
appearing in television roles in 1952, landing her first recurring role as June
Wallace on
Ray Bolger's
Where's Raymond?
in 1953-54. She appeared on a string of drama anthology TV series through the
mid 1950s, as well as an occasional minor film role, before finding regular
guest spots on TV series such as
Sugarfoot,
Lawman, and
Wagon Train by the late 1950s. She played the role of Viola
Howell/Slaughter in 9 episodes of the Walt Disney serial
Texas John Slaughter from 1959-61 before finally landing her
career-defining role as Barney Fife's girlfriend Thelma Lou in the March 6,
1961 episode "Cyrano Andy" of
The
Andy Griffith Show.
Lynn would appear 26 times in the role over the next four
years but left the show when Knotts did, even though the producers had
originally planned for her to stay on; she figured there would be little of
consequence for her to do with Barney gone. Though she never found another
continuous role like that of Thelma Lou, she appeared as Miss Lee in 4 episodes
of
Family Affair, as Janet/Janice
Dawson in 6 episodes of
My Three Sons,
and 4 times as Sarah, Ben Matlock's secretary, during the first season of
Matlock. She appeared in the TV movie
Return to Mayberry in 1986 and reprised
the role of Thelma Lou one more time in a 1991 episode of
Nashville Now titled "Mayberry Reunion." After her West
Hollywood home was burglarized twice in a short span, she moved to Griffith's
home town of Mt. Airy, North Caroline in 2007 and continues to appear monthly
at the Andy Griffith Museum to sign autographs and meet fans.
Hope Summers
Sarah Hope Summers was born in Mattoon, Illinois, the
daughter of U.S Representative
John W. Summers. Summers' first career was as a
speech teacher after graduating from Northwestern School of Speech, where she
taught before being hired as the head of the Speech Department at Bradley
University. In 1939 she moved to Chicago and performed in a number of radio
dramas based there. Additionally she performed with various theater companies,
often in one-woman shows, and founded two stock companies of her own. At age 55
she moved to Hollywood and landed her first TV role as Belinda Catherwood on
the series
Hawkins Falls. After that
series ended in 1952 she didn't land another television role for 4 years but
began picking up regular work in 1957 on series such as
Alfred Hitchcock Presents,
Date
With the Angels, and
Wagon Train.
In 1958 she began appearing semi-regularly as Hattie Denton on
The Rifleman, appearing in 16 episodes
over the next two years. She also found occasional feature film work in movies
such as
Zero Hour!,
Hound-Dog Man, and
Inherit the Wind. Her role as Aunt Bee's friend on
The Andy Griffith Show went through a
series of character names from Bertha Edwards in the March 13, 1961 episode
"Andy and Opie, Housekeepers," to Clara Johnson and finally Clara
Edwards. In all she appeared in 32 episodes of
Andy Griffith and another 5 episodes of
Mayberry R.F.D.
At the same time she found work in feature films such as
The Children's Hour,
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken,
The Shakiest Gun in the West,
Rosemary's Baby, and
The Learning Tree. She was also rather
busy guest starring on TV series such as
Gunsmoke,
Make Room for Daddy, and
The Phyllis Diller Show, to name but a
few. After
Mayberry R.F.D. was canceled, she continued to remain active
until within a year of her death, most notably in
Tommy Smothers'
Get to Know Your Rabbit,
Peter Sellers'
Where Does it Hurt?,
Walter Matthau's
Charley Varrick, and as a foul-mouthed
Scrabble player in
Chevy Chase and
Goldie Hawn's
Foul Play. She finally found another recurring role as Olive
Gardner in the 1978 TV series
Another
Day, but the show was canceled after just 4 episodes. She died from
congestive heart failure on June 22, 1979 at the age of 83.
Dick Elliott
Hailing from Salem, Massachusetts,
Richard Damon Elliott's
early career is not well documented, though it is known that he had logged
nearly 30 years in stock theater before landing his first film role in 1933's
Central Airport. His resume lists some
375 credits over the next 30 years. Many of his early film roles were
uncredited in features such as
Annie
Oakley,
The Public Menace, and
Go West Young Man. He appeared in
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,
Li'l Abner,
Christmas in Connecticut, and
It's
a Wonderful Life, telling
Jimmy Stewart from his second-story window to go
ahead and kiss
Donna Reed. His television career began in 1950 when he was cast
as Officer Murphy in 11 episodes of
Dick
Tracy, and he found regular work thereafter on shows such as
Adventures of Superman,
December Bride,
The Red Skelton Hour,
Rawhide,
and
The Real McCoys. His role as
Mayor Pike during the first two seasons of
The
Andy Griffith Show was the last before his death, though he appeared
posthumously as a guest star in episodes of
Laramie
and
The Third Man filmed before he
died from natural causes on December 22, 1961 at the age of 75.
Notable Guest Stars
Season 1, Episode 13, "Mayberry
Goes Hollywood":
Dan Frazer (Capt. Frank McNeil on
Kojak and Lt. McCloskey on
As
the World Turns) plays Hollywood movie producer Mr. Harmon.
Josie Lloyd (Nurse
Roth on
Dr. Kildare) plays Mayor
Pike's daughter Juanita.
Season 1, Episode 14, "The
Horse Trader":
Max Showalter (shown on the left, appeared in
Niagra,
The Music Man,
Dangerous Crossing,
Indestructible Man,
The
Monster That Challenged the World, and
How
to Murder Your Wife and played Gus Clyde on
The Stockard Channing Show) plays antiques dealer Ralph Mason.
Season 1, Episode 15, "Those
Gossipin' Men":
Harry Antrim (appeared in
Miracle on 34th Street,
Words
and Music,
Ma and Pa Kettle, and
Teacher's Pet and played Judge Hooker on
The Great Gildersleeve) plays pharmacist
Fred Walker.
Mary Treen (appeared in
Babbitt,
A Night at the Ritz,
Love Begins at Twenty, and
It's a Wonderful Life and played Emily
Dodger on
Willy and Hilda on
The Joey Bishop Show) plays gossiper
Clara Lindsey.
Sara Seegar (starred in
The
Last Curtain,
Dead Men Tell No Tales,
and
The Music Man and played Eloise
Wilson on
Dennis the Menace) plays a
gossiper on the phone.
Phil Chambers (Sgt. Myles Magruder on
The Gray Ghost and Jed Ransom on
Lassie) plays hotel clerk Jason.
Season 1, Episodes 16, "The
Beauty Contest":
Frank Ferguson (Gus Broeberg on
My Friend Flicka, Eli Carson on
Peyton
Place, and Dr. Barton Stuart on
Petticoat
Junction) plays councilman Sam Lindsey.
Elvia Allman (shown on the right, played Aunt Vera on
I Married Joan, Jane on
The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show,
Cora Dithers on
Blondie, Mrs.
Montague on
The Bob Cummings Show,
Elverna Bradshaw on
The Beverly
Hillbillies, and Selma Plout on
Petticoat
Junction) plays neighbor Henrietta Swanson.
Season 1, Episodes 17,
"Alcohol and Old Lace": Gladys Hurlbut (Harriet Conroy on It's a Great Life and Mrs. Gray on The Ann Sothern Show) plays moonshiner
Clarabelle Morrison.
Season 1, Episode 18, "Andy,
the Marriage Counselor":
Jesse White (shown on the left, appeared in
Harvey,
Bedtime for Bonzo,
The Bad Seed,
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad,Mad World, and
The Reluctant Astronaut and played Mickey Calhoun on
Private Secretary, Jesse Leeds on
Make Room for Daddy, and Oscar Pudney on
The Ann Sothern Show) plays angry
husband Fred Boone.
Forrest Lewis (Mr. Peavey on
The Great Gildersleeve) plays his friend Cliff.
Norman Leavitt (Ralph
on
Trackdown) plays his friend Gil.
Season 1, Episode 19, "Mayberry
on Record":
Hugh Marlowe (starred in
Twelve
O'Clock High,
All About Eve,
The Day the Earth Stood Still, and
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and played
Ellery Queen on
Mystery Is My Business
and Jim Matthews on
Another World)
plays record producer Mr. Maxwell.
Bill Erwin (Joe Walters on
My Three Sons and Glenn Diamond on
Struck by Lightning) plays a prospective
record investor.
George Dunn (Jesse Williams on
Cimarron City and the sheriff on
Camp Runamuck) plays another prospective record investor.
The
Country Boys (bluegrass group later known as The Kentucky Colonels which
included guitarist
Clarence White, a member of the Byrds in the 1970s) plays a
local bluegrass group.
Season 1, Episode 20, "Andy
Saves Barney's Morale":
Florence McMichael (shown on the right, played Phyllis Pearson on
My Three Sons and Winnie Kirkwood on
Mister Ed) plays Barney's girlfriend
Hilda Mae.
Burt Mustin (Foley on
The
Great Gildersleeve, Mr. Finley on
Date
With the Angels, Gus the fireman on
Leave It to Beaver, and Justin Quigley on
All
in the Family) plays checker player Jud Fletcher.
George Dunn (see
"Mayberry on Record" above) plays barbershop customer Pete.
Season 1, Episode 21, "Andy
and the Gentleman Crook":
Dan Tobin (Terrance Clay on
Perry Mason) plays famous criminal Gentleman Dan Caldwell.
Season 1, Episode 24, "The
New Doctor":
George Nader (shown on the left, starred in
Robot
Monster,
Lady Godiva of Coventry,
and
The Female Animal and played
Ellery Queen on
The Further Adventures of
Ellery Queen, Dr. Glenn Barton on
The
Man and the Challenge, and Joe Shannon on
Shannon) plays physician Dr. Robert Benson.
Season 1, Episode 25, "A
Plaque for Mayberry":
Isabel Randolph (Mrs. Boone on
Meet Millie, Ruth Nestor on
Our
Miss Brooks, and Clara Petrie on
The Dick Van Dyke Show) plays historical society representative Mrs. Bixby.
Carol
Veazie (Maude Endles on
Norby) plays historical
society representative Mrs. Harriet Wicks.
Burt Mustin ("Andy Save
Barney's Morale" above) returns as Jud Fletcher.
Season 1, Episode 26, "The
Inspector":
Tod Andrews (Maj. John Singleton Mosby on
The Gray Ghost) plays state inspector Ralph Case.
Willis Bouchey (Mayor
Terwilliger on
The Great Gildersleeve,
Springer on
Pete and Gladys, and the
judge 23 times on
Perry Mason) plays his
superior Mr. Brady.
Season 1, Episode 27, "Ellie
Saves a Female":
R.G. Armstrong (shown on the right, played Police Capt. McAllister on
T.H.E. Cat and Lewis Vendredi on
Friday the 13th) plays farmer Mr. Flint.
Season 1, Episode 28, "Andy
Forecloses":
Will Wright (Mr. Merrivale on
Dennis the Menace) plays department store owner Ben Weaver.
Sam
Edwards (starred in
Captain Midnight,
Twelve O'Clock High, and
The Beatniks and played Hank the hotel
clerk on
The Virginian and Mr. Bill
Anderson on
Little House on the Prairie)
plays debtor Lester Scobey.
Margaret Kerry (voiced Spinner, Paddlefoot, and
other characters on
Clutch Cargo and
played Crystal Mace on
Space Angel)
plays his wife Helen.
Season 1, Episode 29, "Quiet
Sam":
William Schallert (shown on the left, see the biography section for the 1960 post on
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis) plays reclusive
famer Sam Becker.
Season 1, Episode 30, "Barney
Gets His Man": Barney Phillips (Sgt. Ed Jacobs on the original Dragnet, Lt. Sam Geller on Johnny Midnight, Lt. Avery on The Brothers Brannagan, Doc Kaiser on 12 O'Clock High, Mike Golden on Dan August, and Fletcher Huff on The Betty White Show) plays escaped
convict Eddie Brooke. Robert McQuain (later played Joe Waters on The Andy Griffith Show) plays state
policeman Sgt. Johnson. Burt Mustin (see "Andy Save Barney's Morale"
above) returns as Jud Fletcher. Norman Leavitt (see "Andy, the Marriage
Counselor" above) plays a sidewalk bystander.
Season 1, Episode 31, "The
Guitar Player Returns":
James Best (shown on the right, played Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane on
The Dukes of Hazzard) plays guitarist
Jim Lindsey.
Herbert Ellis (Officer Frank Smith on
Dragnet (1952-53), Frank LaValle on
The D.A.'s Man, Wilbur on
Peter Gunn, and Dr. Dan Wagner on
Hennesey)
plays band leader Bobby Fleet.
Phil Chambers (see "Those Gossipin'
Men" above) returns as hotel clerk Jason.
Season 2, Episode 2, "Barney's
Replacement": Mark Miller (Bill Hooten on Guestward Ho!, Jim Nash on Please
Don't Eat the Daisies, and Ross Craig on The Name of the Game) plays county attorney Bob Rogers.
Season 2, Episode 3, "Andy
and the Woman Speeder":
Jean Hagen (shown on the left, starred in
Adam's Rib,
The Asphalt
Jungle, and
Singin' in the Rain
and played Margaret Williams on
Make Room
for Daddy) plays journalist Elizabeth Crowley.
Season 2, Episode 4, "Mayberry
Goes Bankrupt":
Andy Clyde (see the biography section for the 1960 post on
The Real McCoys) plays evictee Frank
Myers.
Season 2, Episode 5, "Barney
on the Rebound": Beverly Tyler (starred in The Fireball, The Cimarron
Kid, and Voodoo Island) plays new
Mayberry resident Melissa Stevens. Jackie Coogan (starred in The Kid, Oliver Twist, A Boy of
Flanders, Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn and played Stoney
Crockett on Cowboy G-Men, Sgt. Barnes
on McKeever & the Colonel, and
Uncle Fester Frump on The Addams Family)
plays her father George.
Season 2, Episode 6, "Opie's
Hobo Friend":
Buddy Ebsen (shown on the right, played Sgt. Hunk Marriner on
Northwest Passage, Jed Clampett on
The Beverly Hillbillies, Barnaby Jones on
Barnaby Jones, and Roy Houston on
Matt Houston) plays drifter Dave Browne.
Season 2, Episode 7, "Crime-Free
Mayberry": George Petrie (Freddie Muller on The Honeymooners, various bit roles on The Jackie Gleason Show, Don Rudy Aiuppo on Wiseguy, Harv Smithfield on Dallas,
and Sid on Mad About You) plays photographer
Joe Layton.
Season 2, Episode 8, "The
Perfect Female":
Gail Davis (shown on the left, trick shot and rodeo performer who appeared
in 15 Gene Autry films, played various roles on
The Gene Autry Show, and played Annie Oakley on
Annie Oakley) plays Thelma Lou's cousin
Karen Moore.
Season 2, Episode 9, "Aunt
Bee's Brief Encounter":
Edgar Buchanan (Uncle Joe Carson on
The Beverly Hillbillies,
Green Acres, and
Petticoat Junction, Red Connors on
Hopalong Cassidy, Judge Roy Bean on
Judge Roy Bean, Bob/Doc Dawson on
Tales of Wells Fargo, Doc Burrage on
The Rifleman, and J.J. Jackson on
Cade's County) plays handyman Henry Wheeler.
Doodles Weaver (narrated
Spike Jones' horse-racing songs, played Jack Stiles on
Lawman, and hosted
A Day With
Doodles) plays mailman George Bricker.
George Cisar (Sgt. Theodore Mooney
on
Dennis the Menace and later played
Cyrus Tankersley on
The Andy Griffith
Show and
Mayberry R.F.D.) plays Mt.
Pilot Sheriff Mitchell.
Season 2, Episode 10, "The
Clubmen":
George N. Neise (Capitan Felipe Arrellanos on
Zorro, Dr. Nat Wyndham on
Wichita Town, and Colonel Thornton on
McKeever & the Colonel) plays Esquire
Club member Roger Courtney.
Ross Elliott (Freddie the director on
The Jack Benny Program and Sheriff
Abbott on
The Virginian) plays club
member Tom Wilson.
Burt Mustin (see "Andy Save Barney's Morale" above)
returns as Jud Fletcher.
Season 2, Episode 12, "Sheriff
Barney":
Ralph Dumke (Zack Morgan on
Waterfront
and Mr. McAfee on
The George Burns and
Gracie Allen Show) plays Greendale Mayor Purdy.
Dabbs Greer (shown on the right, see the
biography section for the 1960 post on
Gunsmoke)
plays Greendale councilman Dobbs.
Jack Teagarden (legendary jazz trombonist)
plays an unnamed Greendale councilman.
Orville Sherman (Mr. Feeney on
Buckskin, Wib Smith on
Gunsmoke, and Tupper on
Daniel Boone) plays argumentative farmer
Welch.
Paul Bryar (Sheriff Harve Anders on
The
Long, Hot Summer) played argumentative farmer Osgood.
Masterson's character often lives by the same principal.
Though he is a faster draw and more accurate shot than anyone he comes up
against and can use the element of surprise to swat away a gun with his cane
before his assailant knows what's coming, he often triumphs by enticing the
guilty to undo themselves. One of his favorite tricks is pretending that a
corpse is still alive to fool the murderer into trying to rekill the dead. In
"Dagger Dance" (April 20, 1961) Masterson, working as an Army scout,
rides into Fort Logan, Colorado with a message for the fort commander, Colonel
Downey, not to attend a planned peace conference the next day because there is
an Indian ambush waiting for him, which almost killed Bat on his way to the
fort. But as he is taken off for medical care, he accidentally drops the note
containing the message, and politically ambitious Major John Whitsett, second
in command, picks it up and burns it so that Downey never gets the message and
rides right into the ambush. Masterson suspects Whitsett, but to prove his
guilt he retrieves Downey's body and with the cooperation of the fort doctor
tells Whitsett that Downey is in a coma, prompting Downey to try to sneak in at
night and finish Downey off with his sword. Masterson is, of course, waiting
for him and catches him in the act. And in "Meeting at Mimbres"
(April 13, 1961) Masterson gets to Mimbres just after informant John Corley is
murdered by the sons of Jobe Crail, who is suspected of kidnapping and selling
Shoshone women to instigate an Indian war. Masterson again conspires with the
local physician to get the word out that Corley is still alive and hides the
body in an ice house on the edge of town to lure the Crail gang into a
stand-off that ends in the death of Crail's sons and the capture of the guilty
patriarch. Once again Masterson has used the criminals' own blood-thirstiness
to bring about their own demise.
Season 3, Episode 25, "No Amnesty for Death": R.G.
Armstrong (Police Capt. McAllister on T.H.E.
Cat and Lewis Vendredi on Friday the
13th) plays Las Tables Marshal William McWilliams. Robert Blake (shown on the right, played
Mickey in over 30 Our Gang shorts and Little Beaver in 23 westerns, starred in Black Rose, Pork Chop Hill, The Purple
Gang, In Cold Blood, Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here, and Electra Glide in Blue, and played Det.
Tony Baretta on Baretta and Father
Noah Rivers on Hell Town)plays his
son Bill Bill. DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy on Star Trek) plays condemned renegade Brock Martin. Billy Wells (college
and professional football player voted player of the game in the 1954 Rose Bowl)
plays condemned renegade Dobie Tunstall. 
Season 3, Episode 29, "The Fourth Man": Kevin
Hagen (shown on the right, played John Colton on Yancy Derringer,
Inspector Dobbs Kobick on Land of the
Giants, and Dr. Hiram Baker on Little
House on the Prairie) plays poker cheat Ace Williams. Dehl Berti (Vittorio
on Buck James and John Taylor on Guns of Paradise) plays his accomplice
Gant Barth. George Kennedy (starred in Charade,
The Sons of Katie Elder, The Dirty Dozen, Cool Hand Luke, and The Naked
Gun and played MP Sgt. Kennedy on The
Phil Silvers Show, Father Samuel Cavanaugh on Sarge, Bumper Morgan on The
Blue Knight, and Carter McKay on Dallas)
plays Lordsburg Sheriff Zeke Armitage. Audrey Dalton (appeared in Titanic (1953), Separate Tables, and Kitten
With a Whip) plays his wife Cally. 
