[Mb-civic] Don Knotts, TV's Barney Fife, Dies - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Don Knotts, TV's Barney Fife, Dies

By Louie Estrada
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 26, 2006; C08

Don Knotts, the rail-thin comic actor who was perhaps best known to 
millions of television viewers as the bungling Deputy Sheriff Barney 
Fife in "The Andy Griffith Show" and the squirrelly landlord in "Three's 
Company," died of lung cancer Feb. 24 at UCLA Medical Center in Los 
Angeles. He was 81.

Mr. Knotts, who often played high-strung characters, won five Emmys for 
Best Supporting Actor in the 1960s as the swaggering but hapless Fife. 
Mr. Knotts developed the idea of the deputy sheriff when he heard that 
Andy Griffith, with whom he had worked in the play "No Time for 
Sergeants," was putting together a TV pilot set in the fictional North 
Carolina town of Mayberry.

The series was a huge success when it aired, from 1960 to 1968, 
consistently ranking in the top 10 of the Nielsen ratings.

Fife, who grew into one of the most beloved comic characters in American 
popular culture, generated sympathy and laughs in scenes in which he 
fumbled to load his service revolver with the single bullet Griffith 
allotted him.

"Don meant everything," Griffith said in a telephone interview. "Don 
made the show. I've lost a lifetime friend."

The two actors remained close friends over the years and reprised their 
roles in the 1986 television movie "Return to Mayberry."

Mr. Knotts's wife, actress Francey Yarborough, said in a statement that 
Griffith visited Mr. Knotts at the hospital shortly before his death to 
say goodbye.

"Don was an actor who played comedy as opposed to a comedian who does 
stand-up," said Mr. Knotts's longtime manager, Sherwin Bash, in a 
telephone interview. "He was one of a kind."

Mr. Knotts, who lived in West Los Angeles, left television in 1965 to 
devote more time to family-oriented film comedies that featured his 
zany, bugged-eyed expressions, high-pitched voice and perfect slapstick 
timing.

His movie credits include "The Incredible Mr. Limpet" (1964), "The Ghost 
and Mr. Chicken" (1966), "The Reluctant Astronaut" (1967), "The Shakiest 
Gun in the West" (1968) and "The Love God?" (1969).

In the 1970s, Mr. Knotts teamed with fellow comic actor Tim Conway in 
the Disney movies "The Apple Dumpling Gang" and "The Apple Dumpling Gang 
Rides Again."

"It's because of Don that I'm in this business," Conway said in an 
interview last year with the Kansas City Star. "When I used to watch the 
old 'Steve Allen Show,' with Don Knotts and Louie Nye and Tom Poston -- 
the 'Man on the Street' stuff -- I just thought Don was the funniest guy 
I'd ever seen. And I used to wait for that show at night."

Mr. Knotts returned to television in the late 1970s, joining the cast of 
ABC's popular sitcom "Three's Company" as the cad landlord Ralph Furley, 
a swinger who usually donned an ascot and bright, colorful leisure 
suits. He remained with the show until its final season in 1984.

In recent years, he had recurring roles on television, including a part 
on Griffith's show "Matlock" and the series "Pleasantville." He also 
performed in dinner theaters and did voice-over for animated films. Most 
recently, he was the voice of Mayor Turkey Lurkey in last year's 
"Chicken Little."

He was born Jesse Donald Knotts on July 21, 1924, in Morgantown, W.Va., 
where he grew up with three brothers. As a young man, he gravitated to 
the world of entertainment, starting as a ventriloquist. He lived in New 
York briefly before returning home and enrolling at West Virginia 
University.

He joined the Army during World War II and served as an entertainer. 
After the military, he returned to West Virginia University to finish 
his degree.

He worked in radio before getting his big break in the 1950s, when he 
won a spot to perform on "The Steve Allen Show." He drew howls from the 
audience playing a weatherman. The skit featured Mr. Knotts as a 
television weatherman forced to ad-lib the forecast without any 
information on the weather. As he wrote on a map about a weather system 
in California, stumbling over his words, it became clear he was writing 
"h-e-l-p."

His marriages to Kay Knotts and Loralee Knotts ended in divorce.

Survivors also include a son and a daughter.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/25/AR2006022501535.html
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20060226/45f9f89a/attachment.htm