Actress Elinor Donahue, best known for her roles in The Andy Griffith Show, Star Trek, The Odd Couple, and Father Knows Best, is opening up about her decades-long career.
ReMind Magazine reported that Donahue discussed filming the first season of The Andy Griffith Show, which premiered in 1960, the same year Father Knows Best ended, during a July 2025 interview with Woman’s World. In the interview, Donahue noted she only filmed 11 episodes of The Andy Griffith Show, which ran for eight seasons. According to Donahue, who played Sheriff Andy Taylor’s (Andy Griffith) love interest, Ellie Walker, she asked to be let go from her three-year contract on the show because she didn’t feel like she was giving her best performances.
“To be honest, I felt like a bird out of a nest. I didn’t feel like I had all my feathers yet and I didn’t feel capable. It was the strangest feeling,” said the 88-year-old actress. “I had a three-year contract for that show, but at the end of the first year, I asked to be let out of my contract, because I didn’t feel that I was playing the role properly. I just didn’t feel right about it. In retrospect, and from things that people have said to me—very lovely things—I was doing okay. I was just not a happy camper and there was no point in my trying to continue with it.”
She also said she spoke to Griffith and his manager, Dick Lank, following her Andy Griffith Show exit.
“I saw him at a party and I went up to him and he was very gracious to me. His manager, Dick Lank, was with him. He said, ‘We just didn’t know how to write for you,'” said Donahue to the publication. “That could be part of it, but I didn’t think there was any real chemistry there and, fortunately, they would sporadically try other women. When Aneta Corsaut came in, I have since read they had a hot and heavy thing going. He was able to relate to her.”
She also said that Griffith was kind when they filmed together on The Andy Griffith Show.
“When we filmed the Christmas episode, he was so kind, I was very nervous about singing, I didn’t sing anymore and I avoided it like the plague. They wanted me to sing ‘Away in a Manger’ with Andy. I tried to get out of it. My mother said, ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, you sing that in church all the time, you can certainly sing that.’ But I was very nervous about it,” said Donahue during the interview. “So at the end of filming one day, we met at a recording studio and we got a key to get in. He could tell I was nervous and said, ‘Just sit down here on the floor and I’ll noodle around with the guitar and you come in when you feel comfortable and we’ll start. Just a rehearsal.’ We started and sang through the whole thing. He said, ‘Oh that was very nice, very good, okay, that’s it.’ I said, ‘What?’ So he faked me out, ’cause he knew how nervous I was. That was what they used. He was a very, very kind and nice man. Very sweet.”
“I was called in to meet with the producers and I went home that afternoon and found out that I had the part. And I didn’t read or anything. I didn’t really know much about it,” said Donahue.
She also said she wanted to leave the show because her acting “was not [her] best work.” In addition, she said she “was going through some personal problems at the time.” Donahue also said she was taken aback when producers didn’t try to convince her to stay on the series.
“They had accepted my leave-taking, which sort of hurt my feelings. I was hoping they would say, ‘Please!'” said the actress.
She also shared she would have “probably” stayed on the show if she had been asked to.
