From today’s point of view, it’s probably difficult for most people to recognize just how big a celebrity Jim Nabors was back in the 1960s and 1970s. He first caught the television audience’s attention as mechanic Gomer Pyle in the third season of The Andy Griffith Show, where he introduced into the popular vernacular phrases like “Gol-ly!” and “Shazam!” He appeared on that show a total of 23 times before being spun-off into his own highly successful series, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., which saw the character joining the United States Marines. This in turn led to his own variety show and success as a recording artist. But so much of it all comes back to Gomer, which was just fine with the late actor/singer.
“I really love Gomer,” Jim proclaimed to Allan Newsome during an interview for his Two Chairs, No Waiting Andy Griffith Show podcast. “I had the good fortune, if you’re gonna play a character, to play as nice a guy as he was. People always ask me if I would like to be identified differently and I tell them, ‘Absolutely not!’ I really enjoyed it and still do. I haven’t necessarily made my career totally on Gomer, because I’ve used so much music in my career, but I’ve been very blessed in that I’ve had a diverse career. I had a situation comedy, a concert career and a variety show. It’s all been really wonderful, because in show business you’re always kind of looking for your next job. It’s a very insecure business. Fortunately, I was never without a job in 40 years.”
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His one regret, he told the New York Daily News, was that early on “I didn’t have more experience. Still, when your opportunity comes along, you don’t ask. You keep your fingers crossed and try your best.”
It all began for James Thurston Nabors on June 12, 1930, in Sylacauga, Alabama, when he entered the world and was greeted by police officer father Fred Nabors, mother Mavis Pearl and older sisters Freddie and Annie Ruth. Singing first became a part of his life in high school and at church. This expanded to acting when he attended the University of Alabama and began performing in skits.
“I grew up singing, but never as a soloist,” he told Allan. “I sang in church choirs, I sang in the ‘glee club’ in high school and things like that. But I never sang a solo. When I went away to college to the University of Alabama, I used to sing around the fraternity house just for fun, as guys do.”
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Upon graduation, he moved to New York City, where he worked as a typist for the United Nations. “They paid me $55 a week,” he related to the Press and Sun-Bulletin of Binghamton, New York, in 1963. “It wasn’t much salary, but the work was interesting.”
Jim’s journey continues, just scroll down.
1. The Big Move
He spent about a year in New York before moving to Chattanooga, Tennessee and an NBC television affiliate station, where he worked as a film cutter. “I sort of liked show business,” he told The Times of San Mateo, California in 1965, “but I did not know how you got in. Finally, I couldn’t keep away any longer, so I got that job in Chattanooga, which consisted mostly of inserting commercials into the late, late movies. But I was sort of in show business, which was just fine.”
2. Heading to Hollywood
Suffering from asthma, he ultimately decided he needed a different environment, which led him to Los Angeles. “Like I said,” he continued, “I didn’t know how to get into show business, but I figured that the place to go was Hollywood and I got a job as an assistant film editor at NBC.”
While doing so, he also began acting and singing at a couple of places, most notably Santa Monica tavern The Horn. There he presented a character not dissimilar to what would become Gomer Pyle, and what caught the audience by surprise was the fact that one minute he would be speaking in a higher-pitched comedic voice and then start singing in a baritone.
3. Gaining Momentum
Unfortunately, not everybody enjoyed his performance. “I was singing along there, minding my own business,” he reflected in 1963, “when some guy in the audience stands up and says, ‘Get off the stage, you big hick, and bring on the girls.’ Well, I was so embarrassed, all I could do was stand there and look ashamed of myself. For about a minute I just looked down at my shoes and felt like crying or something. I didn’t have any smart-aleck things to say to that fella, so I just stood there feeling real bad. It was awful quiet. Then some of the crowd got riled up at that man and told him to get out. Then they clapped for me and I started singing again. So everything worked out.”
4. Getting Discovered
Geoffrey Mark, an entertainment performer, author and pop culture historian, explains, “Jim wanted to do stage work. He wanted to be a singer/actor kind of guy, and he put together an act kind of loosely based on a cabaret act Andy Griffith had done. Most people don’t know this about Andy, that originally what made him famous and brought him to national attention was where he did a stage act of a Southerner looking at something that most Americans think is ordinary, but seeing it through different eyes. So the thing that got Andy noticed was the routine, ‘What it was, was football,’ approaching it as if a southerner doesn’t know what football is. Back then it was funny. And then he would sing. So that’s what Jim was doing: the hick act and then opening up his mouth and singing with that gorgeous voice of his. I know that Andy went and saw him, but also my friend Bill Dana claimed that he was the first one to see Jim do it. Andy said he was first, but my friend Steve Allen saw him and put him on his show. So Jim was another of Steve Allen’s discoveries like I was.”
5. Reaching Stardom
“That gave Jim enough juice that when they wanted to add a character to The Andy Griffith Show, they thought of him,” continues Geoffrey. “On sitcoms you must add characters or change situations so you’re not writing the same story over and over again. And he was familiar with Jim’s work, knew he could do the Southern thing really well and knew that Jim could sing so they could use his voice on the show. And they wrote Gomer Pyle in. It’s one of those things where they tried it once and the audience loved it and his coworkers loved it. Everybody who worked with him was, like, ‘Wow, this guy’s really good,’ except for Frances Bavier [Aunt Bee]. She just saw him as a threat; somebody else who would take screen time away from her.”
6. Creating Memories
For his part, Jim was delighted to be with the show. “As a matter of fact,” he told Allan Newsome, “it’s been one of my favorite things I’ve ever done, because I didn’t have to carry the show. And yet it was a learning experience for me. I couldn’t wait to go to work every day, because I knew I was gonna laugh, enjoy myself and have a good time.”
7. Working Alongside Don Knotts
“The Andy Griffith Show was,” he continued, “one of the best ensembles that have ever been on television. Andy was secure enough as a performer in his own right that he could let each one of us go with whatever we could do. Of course, it was hard for me not to laugh when I’d do a scene with Don Knotts sometimes, because he was so hysterical. He used to break me up and I was supposed to be standing there looking kind of dumb and I’d always start grinning. Then the director would start sayin’, ‘Don’t do that. Don’t do that!’”
8. Important Connection
Despite the fact he was only in a couple of dozen episodes across seasons three and four, there was obviously a connection between Jim’s Gomer and the audience. Muses Allan, “I think the appeal of the character of Gomer was his innocence. It was an innocent behavior. His outlook on life was kind of a rosy one. He always saw the best in people, never assumed anybody was a bad person. And I think there’s something attractive about that, to see somebody that is genuine and really believes what he lives.”
9. Endless Possibilities
That connection resulted in the creation of a spin-off show for Jim, which took the form of Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., which saw the Mayberry mechanic enter the Marines where he would innocently square off against Frank Sutton’s Sergeant Carter. Frankly, the creation of the show was strictly a business decision. Explains Geoffrey, “The very ambitious — and it’s important to use that word — producing team of Danny Thomas and Sheldon Leonard took the Make Room for Daddy money that Desi Arnaz had invested in it — none of this would have happened if Desi hadn’t given Danny Thomas the money to make Make Room for Daddy — and kept investing their money in other things. Because The Andy Griffith Show was a spinoff of Danny Thomas’ show, they saw the possibility in Gomer Pyle.”
10. Mayberry
“Sheldon Leonard,” he elaborates, “thought this was somebody they could build a show around. Take the character out of Mayberry and create a scenario for him, but he would be the same naïve, good-natured, but getting into trouble awkward guy with a singing voice. What they came up with was the idea of putting him in the military right at the time the United States was starting to get involved with Vietnam. So our military was a topic of discussion, but it was not yet controversial. They got to surround Nabors’ slightly effeminate Gomer with a lot of testosterone-filled costars to balance it out. They were very lucky that Frank Sutton was brilliantly cast as Sergeant Carter.”
