Can anyone imagine The Andy Griffith Show without Andy Griffith? Who else could bring that grounded wisdom and warmth to Sheriff Andy Taylor? Can we imagine someone else dealing with the antics of Don Knotts‘ Barney Fife while raising young Opie?
Well, that almost happened. Griffith once admitted that he “didn’t like” the whole concept of playing a sheriff in a North Carolina town. But, thanks to his judgment of character—and his career being at a dead end—we got one of the most beloved shows in TV history.
In an interview with the TV Academy, Griffith said that, in the late 1950s, he went to see Abraham Lastfogel, the president of talent agency William Morris.
“I had not done well in the last number of years, professionally,” said Griffith. “I had done a movie that was a turkey called Onionhead. I went back to Broadway with [Destry Rides Again], a musical. It ran a year on a “twofer,” you know—where you have two tickets for the price of one.”
“I told Lastfogel,” said Griffith. “I said, ‘I’ve struck out at movies and in the theater. And I don’t want to go back to nightclubs. Maybe I should try television.’”
It wasn’t long after that meeting that Sheldon Leonard paid a visit to Griffith in New York. Leonard, a former actor in film and radio, had begun his career as a writer and producer on television. He had an early success with Danny Thomas‘s Make Room For Daddy, and he had an idea for a new program.
“He told me this notion he had for a show about a sheriff in a small town,” said Griffith. “And I didn’t really like the idea, but I liked Sheldon a lot. And I asked him to come back and see me, which he did.”
Did Griffith have a change of heart? Not entirely. “I still didn’t like the idea,” he said, “but I liked him, so I went with it.”
It’s a good thing for Andy that he did. The Andy Griffith Show ran for eight seasons, becoming one of the most beloved shows in TV history. It also gave Griffith’s career a much-needed boost. He’d appeared in non-turkey films like Go Ask Alice and Savages. He’d also become a television icon when he left Mayberry and donned a white suit as the lead of Matlock.
