![]() ![]() Long before that, he won the 1961-67 Primetime Emmys in the category of Outstanding Performance in a Supporting Role by an Actor or Actress in a Series (and the last two were for guest star appearances on the show). Then, on July 23, 2016, in his hometown of Morgantown, West Virginia, a statue of him was unveiled in front of The Metropolitan Theatre. Buried at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California, his grave is adorned with a bronze plaque that has images of his different characters etched in it. Six years before his death, Don was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Dean Martin had watched this happen with Jerry Lewis, all the critics ignoring the straight man and laying praise on his funnier partner… with a deputy, especially a wide-eyed, manic comedic dervish such as Don - why, maybe then Andy could reshape Andy into something palatable, something enduring.” Good instincts there, Andy! If there was a downside, perhaps it was the danger that Don’s comic star might one day outshine Andy’s own. “The two men had already proved how well they could play off each other,” he wrote. Needless to say, that worked.Īs recounted by author Daniel de Vise, Andy Griffith was somewhat reluctant to cast Don in the role. What's interesting is, as originally intended, Don would have been the straight man and Andy the funny guy (which is the way they played off each other in No Time for Sergeants), but it just felt wrong and their personas were swapped. During his time on the show, he endeared the self-important, easily flustered Barney to the television audience, who absolutely loved his portrayal. His life definitely changed forever when Don signed on to play Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife, serving with Sheriff Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith) to protect the town of Mayberry. In 1958, he starred in the film version, which is the first time he and Andy Griffith appeared on screen together, and the chemistry between them was instant. ![]() During this period (1955-57) he also appeared in a Broadway production of No Time for Sergeants, that saw him playing two roles. The following year saw him become a part of the cast of comedian Steve Allen’s version of The Tonight Show, which he remained a part of until 1960. He made the move to television, spending two years on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow from 1953-55 (playing a catatonic character who would only respond to his sister). It began with the radio western (back in the days when people would “watch” radio since TV wasn’t prevalent yet) Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders, on which he voiced a know-it-all character named Windy Wales. Thanks to connections he made while serving in the army, Don, who had gotten married to Kathryn Metz (the first of three wives), returned to New York, but this time with a definite game plan. Scroll through the gallery below to take a look back at Don Knotts' life! ![]() Needless to say, he accomplished that, and what follows is a look back at his life and career, from his early acting days, his TV success, to making movies. He brought a comic energy that simply touched his costars and the audience in almost anything he did.īorn Jesse Donald Knotts on July 21, 1924, in Morgantown, WV, Don somehow managed to survive an extremely unhappy and unhealthy (both physically and emotionally) childhood, and was filled with a determination to make others laugh. But the truth is, Don's contributions to the show, and many of his other projects, including, many years later, Three's Company, can't be underestimated. Yet somehow these two men, fast friends off camera, made that relationship real and allowed us to believe in them as people, not cartoons. Barney, on the other hand, has tremendous delusions of grandeur, is filled with over-reactions, a false swagger, and often causes many of the comic mishaps that unfold on the show. These two couldn't be more different from each other, yet there's something about that combination that kept people tuning in week after week back when the show originally ran in the 1960s, and even years after in reruns.Īndy is the straight man, a folksy fellow serving the good people of Mayberry who pretty much always knows how to handle a situation, and generally keeps his cool. And that's certainly the case with Andy Griffith's Sheriff Andy Taylor and Don Knotts' Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show. When you look back at different Classic TV shows featuring comedy duos, you're often left wondering what it is that brings these two characters together. ![]()
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