Ron Howard, Mayberry and ‘The Andy Griffith Show’: The Actor Remembers His Days as Opie Taylor
Ron Howard reflects on his time as Opie Taylor and the lasting legacy of 'The Andy Griffith Show'
Before he was a revered director or even Richie Cunningham on Happy Days, Ron Howard was just a little redheaded boy named Opie Taylor, growing up in the fictional town of Mayberry on The Andy Griffith Show. But how did a child actor so young find his footing in such a defining role—and come away from it not only grounded, but inspired?
“I never thought about doing a series,” Ron said in his interview with the Television Academy Foundation. “I mean, I don’t ever remember it being discussed, but I think it was pretty clear at that point—I was enjoying it, and I was good at it.” What’s remarkable is that Ron’s parents—both actors themselves—never pushed him into the spotlight. “They were always saying, ‘You don’t have to do this.’ They’d sit me down and remind me, ‘You’re not doing it for us.’”
Prior to The Andy Griffith Show, he had an uncredited part in Frontier Woman (1956), a role in The Journey (1959) and appeared in one of the great episodes of The Twilight Zone, “Walking Distance” (1959), but Griffith—which he was a part of from 1960 until its end in 1968—represented something very different: a long-term contract, which meant that he couldn’t just walk away if he changed his mind. It’s something that his parents made sure he understood, but he was nonetheless all in. Sure, memorizing lines could be a drag sometimes, and his father would have to step in with a gentle push. “He’d sit me down and say, ‘This is like your homework—you really have to do it.’”
At first, his father had to teach him every line—Ron couldn’t yet read or write. In fact, he only learned cursive so he could sign autographs. But even with those challenges, the show was designed in a way that made things easier for a child actor. “I was rarely the lead of anything. I didn’t have to bear the burden that someone like Jerry Mathers or Jay North was carrying.” Those young actors, of course, were the stars of Leave It to Beaver and Dennis the Menace, respectively.
Laying the groundwork for his future
Ron’s father, Rance Howard, wasn’t just helping him rehearse, he was quietly laying the foundation for a future filmmaker without either of them realizing it at the time. “He was teaching me to act,” Ron recalled. “There’s a real tendency to treat child actors like trained animals. It’s not really acting, it’s performing. And there’s a big difference.” On set, Rance became a bridge between his son and the directors—even filmmakers like Vincente Minnelli relied on him during 1963’s The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. “Minnelli would talk to my dad, and my dad would come talk to me.”
It wasn’t just performance Ron was absorbing—it was process. Each Thursday during read-throughs, the cast was invited to stay and participate in creative discussions. That included little Opie. “I got to hear these people solving creative problems. Tough, tough creative questions. I began to understand the development of a story, a joke, an emotional turn.” He still remembers Andy Griffith’s insistence: “We’re not doing Li’l Abner. It’s not The Beverly Hillbillies. I want people to laugh with these characters, not at them.”
Ron’s own voice began to find its place in that process. During rehearsal for an episode in Season 2, he questioned a line. “I said, ‘I don’t think a kid my age would say it this way.’” Director Bob Sweeney let him pitch a rewrite—and used it.
By then, the wheels were already turning. Howard Morris—Ernest T. Bass on the show and a brilliant comic mind—once teased him, “You’re going to be a director.” Other directors on the series, many of them former actors, began talking to him seriously about the craft. “I liked playing with the camera. I saw that the director was the one who got to play with everybody.”
Looking back, Ron sees The Andy Griffith Show as more than just a sitcom about a sheriff and his son. “It’s about a community as family. None of the characters had traditional families, but Mayberry was a family. And I think that’s why it still resonates.” Indeed, the show has been used to teach Sunday school lessons and college courses. “It’s one of the ultimate family shows,” he said, “even though ironically, there are no traditional families in it.”
As for Opie? The name, he said, came from a 1940s bandleader Andy Griffith admired. The character started off as a more traditional sitcom kid—wisecracking, full of punchlines, but Ron’s real-life relationship with his father inspired a shift. “My dad said, ‘What if Opie actually respected Andy?’ That changed the tone. Andy took to it.” It made Opie stand apart—a child character who loved and admired his father rather than undermined him. It was just the beginning of Ron Howard’s long relationship with television—and storytelling itself.
Life in Mayberry
Ron Howard’s portrayal of Opie Taylor wasn’t just a performance—it was, in many ways, a natural extension of himself. The onscreen bond between Opie and Sheriff Andy Taylor, played with steady warmth by Andy Griffith, was simple, loving and rooted in mutual respect.
“Opie did have a lot of respect for his father,” he explained. “He could act up, sure, but it was always honest. The Andy-Opie relationship wasn’t exactly like mine and my dad’s, but it felt pretty similar. So it never felt like a fantasy world to me. Just a kind of truthfulness.”
That sense of truth extended to how he learned his craft. While most kids were still mastering long division, Ron was absorbing lessons in comic timing from Griffith himself. “If I was stepping on a joke or needed to wait for a laugh, Andy would school me,” he recalled. “But for the most part, it was naturalism.”
Watching the show was a family ritual—at least when he was allowed to stay up late enough to see it. “It wasn’t until I got a little older that I could watch it weekly. Mostly, I enjoyed it. It wasn’t really until later that I started to be more critical of my own work.”
Griffith left an even deeper mark off-camera. “Andy was a very intelligent guy—kind of self-schooled. He’d been a teacher, but taught himself how to be an entertainer,” Ron said. He compared Griffith’s style to that of a Will Rogers–type humorist, someone who could entertain with warmth and wit rather than punchlines.
But Griffith was also serious when it counted. “He poured everything he had into that show. He set the tone for the entire set—it was playful when it could be, but when it was time to work, he was focused. That sense of professionalism really stuck with me.”
‘Andy Griffith’ cast and story memories
One of the show’s most defining dynamics was the chemistry between Andy Griffith and Don Knotts, who played the bumbling but lovable Deputy Barney Fife. Ron recalled Knotts as gentle and quiet in real life. “The only time he’d be funny off-camera was when Andy got him going. Then they’d do a routine—Southern preacher bits, baseball routines and so on.” The in-between moments on set could be just as memorable, with impromptu jam sessions breaking out among cast and crew. “There were days I didn’t want to go back to the school room—I just wanted to hang around and soak it all in.”
Not every cast member took part in the shenanigans. Frances Bavier, who played Aunt Bee, kept more to herself. “She was a New York stage actress. Extremely professional and I think she appreciated the show’s success, but she wasn’t part of the guitar-playing and story-swapping crowd.”
Some episodes stood out more than others—particularly “Opie the Birdman,” a fan favorite looking at the impact of Opie accidentally killing a bird with his slingshot, which also had a deeply personal memory for the young actor. “I had a dog named Gulliver who had been hit by a car,” he shared. “To get to that emotional place for the scenes, my dad reminded me of how I felt when Gulliver died. That was method acting before I even knew what that was.”
The tears in that episode were real, and so was Ron’s pride in having a “good part.” “I was excited when I had a lot of scenes. Later, I realized that episode has almost no jokes. What sitcom does that at the height of its run? It’s not reaching for laughs—it’s just honest and moving.”
Then there was “The Pickle Story,” which brought a very different kind of challenge. “I hated pickles. Biting into those pickles was painful. But even worse was the fake ice cream we had to use. Because of the heat from the lights, you couldn’t use real ice cream. So the prop guy would hand me this cone full of colored mashed potatoes. Licking that takes acting.”
Another standout was “Mr. McBeevee,” a hauntingly beautiful episode about belief and trust between father and son. “It was one of the few times where the storyline itself really moved me. The guy playing Mr. McBeevee was fantastic. I just found the whole thing heartbreaking.”
Ron’s favorite, though, remains “Opie, the Birdman” and a late-series baseball episode inspired by a real event. “My dad was umpiring at a birthday party and called me out at home plate on what I thought was a game-winning grand slam,” he laughed. “We lost the game and I was upset—but even then, I could see the humor in it. My dad turned it into a story idea and they built an episode around it. I got a huge kick out of that—playing baseball on the show and knowing it came from my own life.”
A life enriched by his experience on The Andy Griffith Show, with lessons learned being carried over to a little show called Happy Days.
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Woman's World does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.
