Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Don Knotts died today

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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-25-2006, 07:42 PM:

link to story

Don Knotts, TV's Barney Fife, Dies at 81

By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ, Associated Press Writer
22 minutes ago

Don Knotts, who kept generations of TV audiences laughing as bumbling Deputy Barney Fife on "The Andy Griffith Show" and would-be swinger landlord Ralph Furley on "Three's Company," has died. He was 81.

Knotts died Friday night of pulmonary and respiratory complications at a Los Angeles hospital, said Paul Ward, a spokesman for the cable network TV Land, which airs his two signature shows.

Griffith, who remained close friends with Knotts, said he had a brilliant comedic mind and wrote some of the show's best scenes.

"Don was a small man ... but everything else about him was large: his mind, his expressions," Griffith told The Associated Press on Saturday. "Don was special. There's nobody like him.

"I loved him very much," Griffith added. "We had a long and wonderful life together."

Unspecified health problems had forced Knotts to cancel an appearance in his native Morgantown in August.

The West Virginia-born actor's half-century career included seven TV series and more than 25 films, but it was the Griffith show that brought him TV immortality and five Emmys.

The show ran from 1960-68, and was in the top 10 of the Nielsen ratings each season, including a No. 1 ranking its final year. It is one of only three series in TV history to bow out at the top: The others are "I Love Lucy" and "Seinfeld." The 249 episodes have appeared frequently in reruns and have spawned a large, active network of fan clubs.

As the bug-eyed deputy to Griffith, Knotts carried in his shirt pocket the one bullet he was allowed after shooting himself in the foot. The constant fumbling, a recurring sight gag, was typical of his self-deprecating humor.

Knotts, whose shy, soft-spoken manner was unlike his high-strung characters, once said he was most proud of the Fife character and doesn't mind being remembered that way.

His favorite episodes, he said, were "The Pickle Story," where Aunt Bea makes pickles no one can eat, and "Barney and the Choir," where no one can stop him from singing.

"I can't sing. It makes me sad that I can't sing or dance well enough to be in a musical, but I'm just not talented in that way," he lamented. "It's one of my weaknesses."

Knotts appeared on several other television shows. In 1979, he replaced Norman Fell on "Three's Company," also starring John Ritter, Suzanne Somers and Joyce DeWitt.

Early in his TV career, he was one of the original cast members of "The Steve Allen Show," the comedy-variety show that ran from 1956-61. He was one of a group of memorable comics backing Allen that included Louis Nye, Tom Poston and Bill "Jose Jimenez" Dana.

Knotts' G-rated films were family fun, not box-office blockbusters. In most, he ends up the hero and gets the girl — a girl who can see through his nervousness to the heart of gold.

In the part-animated 1964 film "The Incredible Mr. Limpet," Knotts played a meek clerk who turns into a fish after he is rejected by the Navy.

When it was announced in 1998 that Jim Carrey would star in a "Limpet" remake, Knotts responded: "I'm just flattered that someone of Carrey's caliber is remaking something I did. Now, if someone else did Barney Fife, THAT would be different."

In the 1967 film "The Reluctant Astronaut," co-starring Leslie Nielsen, Knotts' father enrolls his wimpy son — operator of a Kiddieland rocket ride — in NASA's space program. Knotts poses as a famous astronaut to the joy of his parents and hometown but is eventually exposed for what he really is, a janitor so terrified of heights he refuses to ride an airplane.

In the 1969 film "The Love God?," he was a geeky bird-watcher who is duped into becoming publisher of a naughty men's magazine and then becomes a national sex symbol. Eventually, he comes to his senses, leaves the big city and marries the sweet girl next door.

He was among an army of comedians from Buster Keaton to Jonathan Winters to liven up the 1963 megacomedy "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." Other films include "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" (1966); "The Shakiest Gun in the West" (1968); and a few Disney films such as "The Apple Dumpling Gang" (1974); "Gus" (1976); and "Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo" (1977).

In 1998, he had a key role in the back-to-the-past movie "Pleasantville," playing a folksy television repairman whose supercharged remote control sends a teen boy and his sister into a TV sitcom past.

Knotts began his show biz career even before he graduated from high school, performing as a ventriloquist at local clubs and churches. He majored in speech at West Virginia University, then took off for the big city.

"I went to New York cold. On a $100 bill. Bummed a ride," he recalled in a visit to his hometown of Morgantown, where city officials renamed a street for him in 1998.

Within six months, Knotts had taken a job on a radio Western called "Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders," playing a wisecracking, know-it-all handyman. He stayed with it for five years, then came his series TV debut on "The Steve Allen Show."

He married Kay Metz in 1948, the year he graduated from college. The couple had two children before divorcing in 1969. Knotts later married, then divorced Lara Lee Szuchna.

In recent years, he said he had no plans to retire, traveling with theater productions and appearing in print and TV ads for Kodiak pressure treated wood.

The world laughed at Knotts, but it also laughed with him.

He treasured his comedic roles and could point to only one role that wasn't funny, a brief stint on the daytime drama "Search for Tomorrow."

"That's the only serious thing I've done. I don't miss that," Knotts said.

___

Associated Press writer Vicki Smith in Morgantown, W.Va., contributed to this report.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-25-2006, 08:09 PM:

Scooby Doo just lost it's main guest star. I guess we'll see more Harlem Gobetrotters episodes now.

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 02-25-2006, 09:37 PM:

[Frown]

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 02-25-2006, 10:16 PM:

Sad news. I didn't even realize that he was in Chicken Little until it was leaving our theater. I always enjoyed Don Knotts. Especially when he teamed up with Tim Conway. The Private Eyes was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid.

[Frown]

Posted by Don Sneed (Member # 955) on 02-25-2006, 11:15 PM:

Wow what shock to hear....so long Don Knotts, you were funny, thanks for the laughs [Big Grin]

Posted by Thomas Jonsson (Member # 1902) on 02-26-2006, 11:12 AM:

I´ve only seen Don Knotts once, in Mad Mad World, but that was
enough to remember him forever. Any suggestions for DVD´s with
this comedian?

Thomas

Posted by Timothy Eiler (Member # 383) on 02-26-2006, 11:31 AM:

quote: Thomas Jonsson
Any suggestions for DVD´s with
this comedian?

You Could buy the Reluctant Hero Pack Which has The Folowing Movies

The Ghost and Mr.Chicken
The Reluctant Astronaut
The Shakiest Gun in the West
The Love God?

Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 02-26-2006, 12:36 PM:

One of my fav as a kid was "The Incredible Mr. Limpet".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058230/

Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 02-26-2006, 12:36 PM:

Thomas, definitely check out The Private Eyes which Mark mentioned above!

Then, if Disney movies don't bother you, perhaps: The Incredible Mr. Limpet or The Apple Dumpling Gang might interest you too.

::edit:: ahh... Michael beat me to the punch on "limpet"

Posted by Thomas Jonsson (Member # 1902) on 02-26-2006, 02:07 PM:

Thanks for the tip. I will look for those titles at Amazon.

Thomas

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-26-2006, 05:19 PM:

Or better yet, avoid the movies and pick any season of the Andy Griffith Show. All of the seasons 1 - 5 featuring Don Knotts are available now on DVD (and I'm sure the later seasons where he guest starred in a few episodes will be on the way). "Barney and the Choir" is a true classic and still cracks me up even though I've seen it many times.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 02-26-2006, 06:49 PM:

We'll miss ya "Henry Limpet" (excellent WB 1964 IB stock print)

Tim and Don were a team in themselves as with "the Private Eyes" - ran that movie back in 1980 and was released by New World Productions (remember that releasing company?).

-Monte

Posted by Frank Dubrois (Member # 3042) on 02-26-2006, 06:58 PM:

Don't forget him and tim Conway in The Prize Fighter. Its not quite as good as Private Eyes, but still good stuff.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 02-26-2006, 07:35 PM:

In No Time For Sergeants, Don Knotts was wonderful as the Air Force shrink to test the troops...especially on the "rings."

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-26-2006, 07:52 PM:

No Time for Sergeants is one of the funniest comedies of all time! Unfortunately still not out on DVD though.

Maj. Demming: I think that I would rather live in the rottenest pigsty in Tennessee or Alabama than the fanciest mansion in all of Georgia. How about that?

Will Stockdale: Well, sir... I think where you wanna live is your business.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 02-26-2006, 09:41 PM:

quote: Timothy Eiler
The Ghost and Mr.Chicken
The Reluctant Astronaut
The Shakiest Gun in the West
The Love God?

..all of the great mid 60's releases by Universal

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 02-26-2006, 11:10 PM:

"There's no such thing as a wookalar."

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-27-2006, 10:05 PM:

The New York Times published a tribute to Don Knotts. I especially like Billy Bob Thornton's quote. Billy Bob has also mentioned "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" as one of his favorite movies of all time.

Don Knotts, Ever Proud to Be a Bumbler
By VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN

Don Knotts was a high-status comic who played low-status roles. Actors who worked with him almost universally deferred to him as a comedic grandmaster, yet his characters were not jokers but the butts of jokes. He was absolutely flappable. No one had a better tremor or double-take, and with his unmistakable homeliness — bulging eyes, receding chin, stooped shoulders, broad hips — he didn't bother to play the wise fool; he wisely stuck to just the fool.

Of Barney Fife, Mr. Knotts's character on "The Andy Griffith Show," Billy Bob Thornton said, "Don Knotts gave us the best character, the most clearly drawn, most perfect American, most perfect human ever."

Mr. Knotts, who died Friday, grew up during the Depression, in Morgantown, W.Va., where his mother leased a house and took in boarders. He slept in the kitchen. His older brothers, Sid and Shadow, were funny, but they also drank and fought, and Shadow died of an asthma attack while Don was a teenager. Their father, who had suffered hysterical blindness and a nervous collapse before Don was born, rarely left his bed.

The Depression was a high time for Mr. Knotts's act. He practiced magic and ventriloquism for the neighbors and the boarders, many of whom were students or jobless and welcomed satire. When World War II came, his friends thought the Army wouldn't take him, since he looked unwell and undernourished, but he ended up serving out his duty as a comedian in the Stars and Gripes, a revue that played in the South Pacific. At first, he performed only with his ventriloquist dummy, Danny, but one day he caught Red Ford, an older Texas comic, staring at him and laughing. "You know something?" Mr. Knotts remembered Ford saying in "Barney Fife, and Other Characters I Have Known," his 1999 autobiography. "You're a funny little son of a bitch."

He was a generous performer who liked to share the stage, and he thrived in duets, teams, variety shows, ensembles. Back in New York, he noticed a man whose hands shook and who spilled water; he combined that with Robert Benchley's famous apologetic speaker from the monologue "Treasurer's Report," and the nervous character, who went on to fame on "The Steve Allen Show," was born.

Mr. Knotts plainly stole stuff, and other comics didn't mind lending him material. He was wonderfully unthreatening to other male comics, all of whom could think of themselves as one step closer to leading men than Mr. Knotts was. It's hard to think of an actor, in fact, who got more helping hands than Mr. Knotts in his early days. Male actors were forever offering him parts, trying to get him to join their acts. Sharing the stage with this skinny, spazzy guy could only make them look more commanding.

Among these mentors was Andy Griffith, whom he met when they were both cast in the play "No Time for Sergeants" in 1955. Mr. Griffith and Mr. Knotts cracked each other up. A few years later, when Mr. Knotts proposed himself as a deputy to Andy Taylor on Mr. Griffith's sitcom, Mr. Griffith went for it. Andy's crinkly, deep-set eyes conveyed calm and sagacity, while Barney's popped ones expressed pure anxiety — something akin to horror at the demands of ordinary life.

Mr. Knotts's popular movies, "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken," "The Incredible Mr. Limpet," "The Reluctant Astronaut" and "The Shakiest Gun in the West," put him on a winning streak. To comedy geeks, especially the preteen kind, his send-up of 60's superheroism came as a delight and a relief.

One by one, Mr. Knotts mocked the pretenses of the comic actor who often has his eye on nobler pursuits. In the nervous man, he reveled in the discomfort that most comics tend to pass off as indignation or savoir-faire. As Barney, he satirized swagger and self-importance. Finally, on "Three's Company" in the late 70's and 80's, he sent up the comedian's hypersexuality, which is often his pride. Mr. Knotts, over and over, was willing to play the desperate, pathetic low-man-on-every-pole. He did it so well — never forsaking his persona and trying to seize the lead, as nearly all major comedians do these days — that his talent for abasement became a source, paradoxically, of great authority. By revealing but never indulging these pretenses, he enlightened everyone he worked with, and his audiences.

And once in a great while he even got to be the hero. On "The Loaded Goat," a winning episode of "The Andy Griffith Show," it's Barney who saves the day. Playing an achingly melancholy song on his harmonica, he leads a dangerous goat, which has swallowed dynamite, out of town.