Griffith's other early roles hewed close to folksy type, including a 1958 movie adaptation of his Broadway turn as Army Air Forces recruit in No Time for Sergeants. He used that part of me to find the emotion of evil, the various thousands of moods that the man had." Griffith told the Los Angeles Times in 2005, the year he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. "At that moment, he and (screenwriter) Budd (Schulberg) could both see that I had a wild side," Mr. Until he auditioned by imitating evangelist Oral Roberts performing a spiritual healing. It's a scary performance that remains relevant each election cycle, in a role Kazan believed Mr. Director Elia Kazan cast him as Lonesome Rhodes, a country singer whose television celebrity leads to corrupt political ambition. Hollywood beckoned the rising comedian, stage and TV star, although his debut in 1957's A Face in the Crowd wasn't the affable bumpkin fans expected. You can find them on YouTube, and you'll laugh like the dickens, as Andy Taylor would say. Griffith's first show business success came in 1954, as a cornpone monologist describing men who "wanted this funny-lookin' little punkin' to play with" in the novelty recording What It Was, Was Football! Years later, I wore down the grooves on a 45 rpm recording of his hayseed persona describing the plot of Hamlet. Griffith's devotions converged, winning a Grammy for the gospel recording I Love to Tell the Story: 25 Timeless Hymns. Griffith first planned to use his baritone voice preaching in church, before music and acting pulled him away. Griffith's most famous role is steeped in North Carolina, where he was born poor in Mount Airy - the Mayberry prototype - raised devoutly Baptist and died wealthy, promptly interred on his Roanoke Island farm. This straightforward work ethic that he adhered to in a very unpretentious way with great humility and very few words." "If people who met him were to be surprised (to learn something about him) it would be this sort of simple commitment to excellence. "There was a fantastic equilibrium between his love of laughter and jokes and funny stories and songs and all that, and then he could turn on a dime and be the utmost professional," Howard told Entertainment Weekly. Griffith as a jovial collaborator whose easy-going style could deceive. Oscar-winning director Ron Howard, who played Opie, on Tuesday recalled Mr. Simple, timeless, like every other act of honesty on the show. Like the time Opie carelessly shot a bird with his BB gun, and Andy made him listen to hatchlings chirping for a mother who wouldn't return to her nest. Andy Taylor was a weekly, prime-time role model of fading innocence, an aw-shucks lawman rarely carrying a gun, bringing pot roast to jail guests and waiting before kissing his girlfriend, Helen Crump, anywhere but on the cheek.Ī widowed, single father, Andy Taylor taught his son, Opie, life lessons with firm conviction and gentle guidance. In the 1960s, The Andy Griffith Show was calm in the eye of a cultural storm, in a nation coarsely abandoning its down-home roots. You can't fake such sincerity, explaining how both series - especially the Mayberry chronicles - remain staples of syndicated television and time capsules of simpler eras. As we got older in the 1980s and '90s, more wary about the world, it was reassuring to have sly, courtly Ben Matlock looking out for innocent folks.Īndy and Ben were essentially the same character - steady, loyal, honest - and by all accounts a lot like the actor playing them.
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