final credits - don knotts
He was a hero of inaction. Much like Art Carney playing against Ralph Gleason in The Honeymooners, it was Don Knotts who always delivered the laughs in whatever television show or movie he played in. Rarely the star, it was Knotts who usually stole the show and the hearts of fans for over two generations.
Fans of television's late Golden Age will remember Knotts for his portrayal of the high-strung small-town deputy Barney Fife on the CBS series "The Andy Griffith Show." For fans of TV's 1970s jiggle period, Knotts was the homophobic leisure-suit-clad landlord Ralph Furley on ABC's "Three's Company."
Jesse Donald Knotts was born in Morgantown, West Virginia. He was the youngest of four brothers. His father spent time in mental hospitals, while older brother Earl -- nicknamed "Shadow" because of his thinness -- died of asthma when Knotts was still a teenager. Knotts once recalled, "We were terribly poor and I hated my size."
Seeking an alter-ego, Knotts turned to performing in his early teens, doing an Edgar Bergen-inspired ventriloquism act with a dummy he named Danny, hiding a bundle of nerves he would later draw into his on-screen characters. Ironically, he majored in speech at West Virginia University after serving the Army in World War II (where he received a Victory Medal among other decorations).
Knotts borrowed $100 and moved to New York to pursue an acting career. He auditioned for several radio gigs and soon landed a job on a radio Western called "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders" playing a know-it-all handyman. He stayed with it for five years.
After a short stint (1953 - 1955) in a serious role on the CBS soap opera "Search for Tomorrow," Knotts appeared on Broadway in Ira Levin's 1955 comedy "No Time for Sergeants" playing alongside a then-unknown Andy Griffith. Knotts won acclaim as an overly tense military evaluator.
The big break came when Knotts made his debut on "The Steve Allen Show," playing a character named Mr. Morrison, aka "the nervous man." A legendary skit involved Morrison as a weatherman who was forced to ad-lib the forecast without any information about the weather. As he spelled out a weather system moving into California on the map, it became clear he was writing "H-E-L-P."
In 1961, United Artists Records released a comedy album titled "Don Knotts: An Evening with Me," which featured variations on the "nervous man" routine he had made famous on Allen's show. Other comics Steve Allen employed included Louis Nye, Tom Poston and Bill "Jose Jimenez" Dana.
"No Time for Sergeants" was made into a feature film in 1958 with Griffith and Knotts reprising their roles. The two actors kept in touch, and when Griffith signed to do a TV series as a rural sheriff, Knotts half-jokingly suggested that the lawman would need a deputy.
Among his peers, Knotts was being recognised for his highly physical brand of acting that eventually drew comparisons to Buster Keaton, Stan Laurel and Harold Lloyd. As Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show," Knotts created a lasting and legendary character.
The Fife character did not appear in the series pilot or in the first few episodes when the series debuted in 1960. Fife was to be part of a large ensemble cast surrounding Griffith as Sheriff Andy Taylor in Mayberry, a fictional North Carolina town near Raleigh.
The show's writers soon realised that Andy Griffith as the straight man and Knotts as the comic focus was the more winning formula. The show became the most popular comedy on television during its first season, and never dropped from the top 10 for the rest of its eight-year run.
To his credit, Griffith never minded the reversal of roles, and later said Knotts wrote some of the show's best scenes. Knotts won five Emmys for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Comedy playing Fife.
"The Andy Griffith Show" usually revolved around Sherrif Taylor rescuing the less-than-competent Deputy Fife from one predicament or another. A running gag had Fife only carrying only one bullet -- in his pocket -- as a safety precaution (despite reports circulated earlier, he never shot himself in the foot). The show also featured a somewhat psychotic barber named Floyd (played by Howard McNear) and as Taylor's son Opie, future Oscar-winning film director Ron Howard. The show spawned two spinoffs: "Gomer Pyle USMC" and "Mayberry R.F.D."
Knotts left "Andy Griffith" in 1965, believing the producers had always intended for the series to last just five seasons. Griffith stayed on for another three with Knotts reviving his role in a number of guest spots. CBS reportedly offered Knotts a lot of money to keep him on their network and there was brief talk of a spin-off show that would have moved Barney Fife to a bigger city as a detective. Knotts wasn't interested -- he had already signed on with Universal to appear in the movies.
Even without Knotts, "Andy Griffith" remained popular and the show was ranked No. 1 in its final season. The 249 "Griffith" episodes remain audience favourites in syndication on cable TV. Only two other series have bowed out at the top: "I Love Lucy" and "Seinfeld."
Griffith and Knotts remained close friends and reprised their roles in the 1986 TV movie "Return to Mayberry." The only rub in their relationship was how little money Knotts made off the "Griffith Show" reruns. Knotts later had a recurring role in Griffith's CBS courtroom drama "Matlock."
Knotts' first foray into film was the 1963 all-star comedy "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World," appearing with Buster Keaton, Phil Silvers and Jonathan Winters as -- what else -- "The Nervous Motorist." Other films included 1966's "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken," 1968's "The Shakiest Gun in the West," and Disney films such as 1976's "Gus" and "Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo" the year following.
Most of Knott's film outings were forgettable save two: 1964's "The Incredible Mr. Limpet," the tale of a meek man who is transformed into a fish, which was a mix of live action and animation serving as the antecedent of such later films as "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" and "Space Jam."
In 1967's "The Reluctant Astronaut," Leslie Nielsen as Knotts' father enrolls his wimpy son -- a Kiddieland rocket ride operator -- in NASA's space program. Knotts poses as a famous astronaut but is eventually exposed as a janitor so terrified of heights he refuses to ride an airplane.
Two other popular Knotts films during this period were "The Apple Dumpling Gang" and "The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again," both with Tim Conway.
Then came "Three's Company." The show, a television nadir in some views, revolved around John Ritter as Jack Tripper, a chef who pretended to be gay in order to share an apartment with two attractive young women (most notably, a pre-Thighmaster Suzanne Somers, among others).
Knotts joined the series in the show's fourth season in 1979 (replacing the original landlords, Norman Fell and Audra Lindley, when they departed for their own spinoff, "The Ropers"). Knotts stayed with the show until it went off the air in 1984 after eight seasons.
As Ralph Furley, Knotts updated his bug-eyed persona as an ascot-wearing middle-ager who mistakenly viewed himself as a swinger. The plot of many episodes hinged on Tripper struggling to keep his secret from the squirrelly ever-suspicious (and homophobic) Furley.
And then came Knott's last major role, playing a folksy television repairman whose turbo-charged remote control sends a teenage boy and his sister into a black-and-white sitcom past in the wondrous 1998 movie "Pleasantville."
In his final years, Knotts voiced the part of T.W. Turtle in the 1997 animated feature "Cats Don't Dance," and did guest spots in 2005 on NBC's "Las Vegas" and Fox's "That '70s Show."
His last work was voicing Turkey Mayor in Disney's animated "Chicken Little," which was released in November, 2005. Having lost his vision during these last roles, Knotts would simply repeat lines an off-screen or off-mike actor fed him.
In an exchange typical of the charm of "The Andy Griffith Show," Sherriff Taylor once quizzed Fife on his habit of shining only the heels of his shoes. "It's the last people ever see of you," Fife replied. Thanks for the memories, Don.
Andy Griffith was one of Knotts' last visitors at the hospital when he died February 24th, 2006 at the age of 81 from pulmonary and respiratory complications due to lung cancer.
Don Knotts has a Bacon number of 2.
For more about "The Andy Griffith Show," visit its Museum of Broadcast Communications entry. Fans of Don Knotts will want to visit his fan-sponsored official web site.
Another memorable character from the "The Andy Griffith Show" was Ernest T. Bass. The actor who played Bass, Howard Morris, died May 21st, 2005.
Other TV actor tributes can be found here.