The show took place in the fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina, where Taylor, a widower, was the sheriff and town sage. In a January 2000 interview, Griffith said of Knotts, "The five years we worked together were the best five years of my life."īeginning in September 1960, Griffith starred as Sheriff Andy Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show for the CBS television network. He appeared in the pilot for Griffith's subsequent short-lived series, The New Andy Griffith Show, and he had a recurring role on Matlock, from 1988 to 1992.
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Knotts left the series in 1965, but periodically returned for guest appearances. Several years later, Knotts had a regular role on The Andy Griffith Show for five seasons. Griffith's friendship with Don Knotts began in 1955 when they co-starred in the Broadway play No Time for Sergeants. Both shows were produced by Sheldon Leonard. This episode, in which Thomas's character is stopped for running a stop sign in a little town, served as a backdoor pilot for The Andy Griffith Show. In 1960, Griffith appeared as a county sheriff, who was also a justice of the peace and the editor of the local newspaper, in an episode of Make Room for Daddy starring Danny Thomas. That was the first of two appearances on that series. Griffith's first appearance on television was in 1955 in the one-hour teleplay of No Time for Sergeants on The United States Steel Hour.
Griffith and Cindi Knight married on April 12, 1983, after they met when he was filming Murder in Coweta County. His second wife was Solica Cassuto, a Greek actress. Sam, a real-estate developer, died in 1996 after years of alcoholism. (born in 1957 and better known as Sam Griffith) and a daughter named Dixie Nann Griffith. Griffith and Barbara Bray Edwards were married on Augand they adopted two children: a son named Andy Samuel Griffith Jr. After graduation, he taught music and drama for a few years at Goldsboro High School in Goldsboro, North Carolina, where he taught, among others, Carl Kasell. He also played roles in several student operettas, including The Chimes of Normandy (1946), and Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers (1945), The Mikado (1948) and H.M.S. At UNC, he was president of the UNC chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, America's oldest fraternity for men in music. He began college studying to be a Moravian preacher, but he changed his major to music and became a part of the school's Carolina Playmakers. He attended the University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree in 1949.