Best known as a TV dad, actor Andy Griffith also had two children of his own: son Andy “Sam” Griffith Jr. and daughter Dixie Griffith.
“For the millions of his fans and people who loved him, he represented something else,” Dixie told The Denver Post in 2012. “But he was my dad.”
In the 1960s, Griffith rose to fame on The Andy Griffith Show in which he played Andy Taylor, the sheriff of the fictional North Carolina town Mayberry. By the late ’80s, Griffith landed the role of defense attorney Ben Matlock on the original ABC legal drama Matlock.
Griffith married his first wife, fellow performer Barbara Edwards, in 1949, and they traveled regionally as an act. A few years in, the couple made a deal that the first one to hit it big in show business would focus on their career, while the other would help support the family’s home life, Edwards recalled to The Coastland Times.
Griffith eventually found success with a comedy record and roles on Broadway and started a family with Edwards via adoption. The pair shared two kids: Sam, born in 1957, and Dixie, born in 1959. The family lived between California, where Griffith worked, and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Griffith and Edwards later divorced in 1972.
Over a decade after the actor died in 2012, his daughter remembered him as a layered person. “He was fun-loving, full of life, introspective, a perfectionist, decisive, so many things,” Dixie told The Cheatham County Exchange in 2024. “Bigger than life in many ways. He was a very complicated individual. I was fortunate enough to see his multi-faceted layers.”
Here’s everything to know about Andy Griffith’s children: Sam and Dixie.
Andy Samuel “Sam” Griffith Jr.
Griffith and Edwards’ son, Andy Samuel Griffith Jr. (nicknamed “Sam”), was born in December 1957.
By the time he was born, Edwards had stepped away from acting to manage the family home and Griffith’s fan mail. “With Sam taking up most of my time, things are complicated, but the letters get answered,” Edwards told The Coastland Times in 1958.
Sam grew up outside of the spotlight, living the majority of his childhood in Toluca Lake, Calif. After Griffith and Edwards divorced, Sam and Dixie started spending more time on the East Coast, where they appeared in The Lost Colony, a longstanding summer play on the Outer Banks. (Griffith and Edwards performed in it for several seasons before the former’s career took off.)
“In 1972, I started out as a ‘colonist child’ making a whopping $10 a week,” Dixie told the Carolina Country in 2020. “My dad was fully supportive and delighted that we were in the show.”
Following an artistic upbringing, Sam settled down in Los Angeles and worked as a real estate developer, but struggled with alcoholism.
He married his wife Renee Griffith in November 1991. A month later, she accused him of domestic abuse, the Los Angeles Times reported. In 1992, Sam pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor counts of assault and received probation. The couple divorced shortly after.
Sam died at age 38 in January 1996. He was found unresponsive by a roommate in his L.A. apartment. According to The Virginian-Pilot, Sam had been estranged from his family for some time before his death.
“It affected my dad on a very, very deep level,” Dixie told Fox News in 2018. “I went to my brother’s funeral service, but my dad wasn’t able to go. There would be too many magazines and cameras, and it just wasn’t a good place for him to be.”
Dixie Griffith, 65
Griffith and Edwards’ daughter, Dixie Nann Griffith, was born in September 1959.
“During the summers, we’d go back to North Carolina and play volleyball and water ski,” Dixie told Fox News about her dad. “I would play with him in the pool, and he’d put me up on his shoulders. He’d always stop what he was doing to play with me.”
After their parents’ divorce in 1972, Dixie moved in with her father. “I went to live with my dad from age 13 to 18 and then again from 20 to 22 in the guest house,” she said to The Cheatham County Exchange in 2024.
Though being Griffith’s daughter afforded her access to Hollywood, she opted not to pursue a career in acting. “I could have been on the producers roster. I chose not to,” she told The Denver Post in 2012.
Dixie continued, “My dad was fiercely protective of us. I respected his privacy all my life. I have kept a pretty low profile, which I still plan on doing.”
She eventually married and moved to Colorado, where she welcomed three daughters. Speaking to The Cheatham County Exchange, she described a visit to Griffith’s North Carolina home where the comedian “doted” on her kids.
“The girls and I went out for Christmas one year, and he was so thrilled and proud to have all his granddaughters with him,” she recounted.
Though Dixie didn’t see him much in his final years, they stayed in touch on the phone.
“He had a very strong will to live and to enjoy his life, and he did enjoy his life,” she told The Denver Post. “One of his favorite things to say, when I’d share news of the girls, was, ‘Well, isn’t that grand!’ Those words came to me the other day. That sums it up. He was grand, and it was grand.”
In recent years, Dixie has been more actively involved in the legacy of her father’s work, executive producing the 2021 film Mayberry Man and working on the 2024 series of the same name.
Dixie has also appeared at Mayberry fan events annually in North Carolina and other places.
“I’m awestruck at the fascination,” she told The Cheatham County Exchange. “I can feel the light from all the love of the people who loved my father, loved the show and loved Mayberry. It gives me a tremendous amount of joy that I never had until I started participating. … I love being able to celebrate my dad in this way.”
