Don Knotts’ Life and Career: Why ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ Was Never the Same Without Him
In this exclusive interview, his biographer and brother-in-law discusses Knotts' life and career
When you watch reruns of The Andy Griffith Show—most notably its first five seasons—you can’t help but get taken in by the easy-going chemistry between Griffith’s role as Mayberry’s Sheriff Andy Taylor and Don Knotts as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife. At the same time, bring up the subject of the show to people, more often than not they’ll respond with some variation of “I love Barney Fife—Don Knotts is just great!”
“Don was one of the all-time great comedic actors—part of a long line of top-tier comedians across generations,” observes Daniel de Vise, author of Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show as well as Knotts’ brother-in-law. “Barney Fife was an iteration of his finest achievement: the Nervous Man, a character he had created about a decade over. Barney was essentially a version of that character, but fleshed out as, mentally and emotionally, a nine- or 11-year-old child. He was this kid in the body of a middle-aged man—jumpy, wiry and hilarious.
“People connected with him instantly,” he adds. “And mind you, audiences had already connected with Don in his earlier work, and they would continue to in his later career. But Barney Five was likely his greatest character, embodying human frailty in a very funny way—particularly masculine frailty.”
It’s his feeling that Barney is a kind of send-up of the 1950s and 1960s masculine ideal—the square-jawed man with a cocktail in his hand, a girl on his arm, the “man of the house” type, comparable to someone like father figure Steve Douglas on My Three Sons.
Notes de Vise, “Don very cleverly and consciously played against that image with Barney Fife. That’s why the character energized and electrified the show But beyond that, you also had this phenomenal chemistry between Don and Andy, and you can’t separate the two. Their loving friendship on screen really resonated—especially with male viewers, but also with audiences in general. People just loved watching them interact.”
Griffith, he says, was the first to adit that the Barney character was the funny one, while he was the surrogate for the audience; the responsible, level-headed adult. “More than anything,” muses de Vise, “Barney was the heart of the show’s comedy.”
Why did Don Knotts quit ‘The Andy Griffith Show’?
Until he wasn’t. Five seasons into the show’s run, Don Knotts departed, creating a vacuum that could never be filled and resulting in The Andy Griffith Show never being the same again.
“Here’s an interesting point,” de Vise points out. “When I researched the book, I had no concrete idea to support that idea—it was just something I personally believed. I felt that, after Don left, the show was simply going through the motions in a very professional way. But since the book came out, I’ve heard it a hundred, maybe a thousand times from readers, fans at Mayberry Days, at book talks, in emails and in other correspondence. I’ve also read it in various articles published since my book was released. It now appears that everyone knows and agrees: the show wasn’t the same after Barney left and after it transitioned to color.
“In fact, ‘being in color’ became shorthand for knowing that Don was no longer in the show,” he elaborates. “Everyone I’ve spoken to since the book was published has reaffirmed that notion. The Andy Griffith Show remained a solid, well-made program, but it had lost its magic. And it did even a little better in the ratings in its final three seasons. But we’ve seen that happen with other shows—their highest ratings sometimes come after they’ve passed their creative peak.
“A similar situation occurred with Saturday Night Live, which hit its biggest ratings in 1980—after all the original cast members were gone. It happens all the time.”
As to why Knotts left the show, the author feels that he had a bit of an epiphany about the situation, based on something Knotts’ manager, Sherwin Bash, told him.
“What happened was,” he says, “Don had always planned to leave after five years. That was the assumption—they all expected the show to wrap up after five seasons. Looking back, that was probably a bit naïve. The show was doing so well that anyone in Hollywood could have told you they weren’t going to pull the plug on a top-five series. But Don and Andy were under the impression that five years was it, so Don made plans to move on. He signed a film contract with Universal—at least the handshake deal was done.
“Then, inevitably, the studio approached Andy and asked him to continue. I think they offered him something like a million dollars a year, which was an enormous sum at the time. At some point, Andy went to Don and asked if he’d consider staying. By then, though, it would have been difficult for Don to walk away from his movie deal.”
Nonetheless, the duo did have an important conversation in Griffith’s home where Knotts intimated that he might be willing to walk away from the Universal deal and return for a sixth season if he was given an ownership stake in the show.
de Vise points out, “This was something the two men discussed as friends, without their managers involved. That was probably a mistake. Andy hesitated—he seemed unsure, maybe uncomfortable—and said something like, “Well, we’ll see.” It ultimately went nowhere.
“I believe Andy wasn’t entirely sure what Don wanted. Maybe he assumed Don was asking for an equal share, which would have been a significant stake. But in reality, Don probably just wanted a small percentage—maybe 5% or so. Because their managers weren’t part of the conversation, the discussion never materialized into anything formal.”
As to regrets, it’s de Vise’s opinion that in the first few years after leaving the show, Knotts didn’t have any. “If he were being honest,” he laughs, “he loved being a film star. His mother, Elsie, had always dreamed of him being in movies. And in the 1960s, getting into film was a big deal—a massive career step. TV actors who successfully transitioned to film were the exception, not the rule. At the time, television was considered the bottom of the industry hierarchy, so he would have been thrilled.
“The films he made were successful—they all turned a profit, and he made five of them. But did he eventually regret leaving? I’m sure, over time, both Don and Andy came to understand that The Andy Griffith Show was the finest work they ever did. Much later in life, they truly came to revere it. But in the immediate years after leaving? No, I don’t think Don regretted it at all.”
From Barney Fife to Ralph Furley on ‘Three’s Company’
When Stanley and Helen Roper were written out of ’70s sensation Three’s Company so that the actors could star in their own spin-off, Knotts was brought aboard to play new landlord Ralph Furley.
“It was a huge deal,” de Vise emphasizes. “It was a number-one show or, at the very least, consistently in the top five or 10. The other performers—John Ritter, Joyce DeWitt, Suzanne Somers—absolutely worshiped Don. They knew he had won five Emmys for playing Barney Fife. To them, he was a comedy god. I interviewed some of them, including Joyce DeWitt and Larry Kline. They adored him and treated him like royalty. I don’t think he even had to audition—they just gave him the part. So he was thrilled.”
At the same time, he asks rhetorically, was it his best work? He would agree with those who thought that it wasn’t.
“A lot of Three’s Company leaned into over-the-top performances and broad comedy. The actors I spoke with told me that one of the funniest things about working with Don was the outrageous technicolor suits his character wore. They had a hard time keeping a straight face when he walked on set in yet another ridiculous outfit.
“That said,” he continues, “Don was dealing with some personal struggles at the time. By then, he had an on-and-off issue with sleeping pills—something he had battled for years. He also began experiencing significant eye problems. So by the time he did Three’s Company, he wasn’t at the top of his game. But from a career perspective, it was a huge coup for him. I’d call it a full-fledged commercial comeback, if not necessarily an artistic one.”
Things slow down for the actor
While Knotts would eventually become a recurring character on Griffith’s legal drama Matlock, work opportunities unquestionably lessened—though apparently for a very good reason.
de Vise states, “I can’t overemphasize how much his worsening eye problems affected him by the end of his time on Three’s Company. By the time he did the What a Country! pilot with Yakov Smirnoff, he actually hired someone—who later became my sister-in-law—partly to read scripts to him and drive him places. Of course, no one in Hollywood likes to talk about these things, but he was starting to face a real disability. That played a role in why his career didn’t take off again after Three’s Company.
“But beyond that, you know as well as I do that lightning seldom strikes twice for TV stars. The vast majority of actors get one hit show—if that. The number of people who manage to star in two major hits? You could count them on one hand, maybe two. It’s incredibly rare. Honestly, the fact that Don had multiple career revivals—his Barney Fife years, his successful film run, Three’s Company, and later work—is amazing. The same goes for Andy Griffith, who had Matlock. The fact that either of them had a second act at all is remarkable.”
Don Knotts’ legacy
When de Vise considers the actor’s legacy, he quickly opines, “It’s as one of our greatest comedic actors. He belongs in the same constellation as the all-time greats of television comedy. You look at performers who won four, five, or six Emmys for their comedic work on television, and they’re part of a very exclusive club. People like Julia Louis-Dreyfus from Seinfeld, Mary Tyler Moore—those kinds of legendary names. Don is right there among them. That’s his legacy.
“Beyond that,” he closes, “because of The Andy Griffith Show, he connected with the entire country in a way that some of those other performers didn’t. Maybe with the exception of people in New York, the entire ‘mashed potato belt’—the heartland—was just smitten with him and with the show. And that love has endured to this day.”
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