He also voiced Santa Claus in the animated Christmas Is Here Again (2007). He was back on the big screen as a villain opposite Leslie Nielsen's secret agent in the comedy Spy Hard (1996), taking cameos in films such as Daddy and Them (Billy Bob Thornton's dark comedy, 2001) and Waitress (2006).
Andy griffith young series#
But Griffith showed his talent for dramatic roles as President Esker Anderson, the Lyndon Johnson clone, in the series Washington: Behind Closed Doors (1977), Commander Robert Munroe in Roots: The Next Generations (1979) and a man pressing charges against his son-in-law in the TV film Murder in Texas (1981), which earned him an Emmy nomination. This led to television appearances in The Colgate Comedy Hour (1954), The Ed Sullivan Show (1955-60) and The Steve Allen Show (1956-58).Īttempts to repeat this success, with The Headmaster (as Andy Thompson, running a school in California, 1970-71), The New Andy Griffith Show (as Andy Sawyer, mayor of a sleepy Southern town, 1971) and Adams of Eagle Lake (as a sheriff in a small ski resort, 1975), failed to capture the public's imagination. One of the first, "What It Was Was Football", telling the story of a country boy attending his first game, became a popular 1953 record release. But he went into show business full-time after success on stage with humorous hillbilly monologues. Matlock even became a popular figure with the fictional cartoon family featured in The Simpsons, once paid homage to in an episode showing the town of Springfield's elderly residents mobbing Griffith and charging him to the ground.īorn in Mount Airy in 1926, Andy Griffith graduated in music from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1949 then taught music at Goldsboro High School. When not seen in his farmhouse, he was at his office in Atlanta, Georgia, or the courtroom in his trademark grey suit. Two decades later Griffith was back on peak-time TV as another rural widower, Ben Matlock, the Harvard-educated, banjo-playing defence attorney whose vague, charming front belied the razor-sharp mind that earned him the $100,000 he charged each of his clients.
Together, they developed the hugely popular series, which finished only when the star decided it was time to leave his character behind – and still regularly topped the viewing figures.
Griffith negotiated himself a 50 per cent share in The Andy Griffith Show (1960-68) with the producer Sheldon Leonard. Raised in Mount Airy at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the north-west corner of North Carolina, Griffith took his country ways and Southern drawl to the folksy character of Andy Taylor, the unflappable widower bringing up a young son while combining roles as sheriff, justice of the peace and newspaper editor in sleepy, turn-of-the-'60s Mayberry. The gentle, small-town sheriff in The Andy Griffith Show and the homespun lawyer in Matlock made Andy Griffith one of American television's most enduring stars – and both found their roots in the actor's own life.
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