7/24/2023 0 Comments Don knotesHe had fared well in supporting roles, notably playing a mousy shoe salesman in the Doris Day vehicle "Move Over, Darling" (1963), but his TV success gave him leading man status beginning with "The Incredible Mr. Knotts left "The Andy Griffith Show" to pursue a feature career. The latter again paired him with Griffith who subsequently hired Knotts to co-star in his sitcom. He reprised the role of Manual Dexterity Corporal for TV on CBS's "The US Steel Hour" and the 1958 feature (his film debut). In between TV assignments, Knotts made his Broadway debut in 1955's "No Time for Sergeants," his first collaboration with Griffith. Knotts gained some attention with sketch appearances on "The Gary Moore Show" and, from 1956-60, gained further exposure as part of the ensemble of "The Steve Allen Show," a superior NBC comedy variety series. He found work in radio and TV, doing a stint on a soap and on the children's show "Howdy Doody," as Tim Tremble, a nervous friend of Buffalo Bob. variety show called "Stars and Gripes." After the service, Knotts went to college where he earned a teaching degree but turned down a fellowship, opting to move to NYC to pursue acting. More specifically, he was a comedian in a touring G.I. Knotts got his first taste of showbiz in the Army during WWII while serving in the South Pacific Theatre of Operations. Griffth would also credit his co-star for writing many of Barney Fife's most inspired comic scenes. Revealingly, Andy never let his deputy carry more than one bullet-and in his shirt pocket at that! Nonetheless, Knotts racked up an impressive winning streak of Emmys for "Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Comedy," taking home the statuette for 1960/61, 1961/62, 1962/63, 1965//67. Knotts' high-pitched whine provided comic counterpart to the soothing cracker-barrel homilies delivered by Griffith's Sheriff Andy Taylor for five seasons. His Deputy Barney Fife, a bumbling but basically benign braggart, provided many of the laughs on the hugely successful rustic sitcom "The Andy Griffith Show" (CBS, 1960-68). Nevertheless, the small screen proved the more hospitable home. After great success in the 1960s as a TV second banana, Knotts spent much of the second half of that decade as a feature comedy star. With his ungainly, frail-looking physique, bulging eyes, weak chin and prominent Adam's apple, he confounded traditional notions of what a screen star should be, but that's exactly what he was for the better part of three decades. In a typical Hollywood paradox, Don Knotts proved quite adept at securing steady work playing the frantically nervous and incompetent.
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