![]() ![]() She died alone there at 86 years old.Īccording to her obituary in the Los Angeles Times, she almost never left her house. She dropped out of sight, declining interviews, keeping fan mail in a pair of old trunks. Neighbors complained that it smelled of cat urine and mildew. Bavier liked her privacy, but in the little town, the ladies never forgave her for not joining one of their churches, saying: “ Don’t forget, you went to church in Mayberry”.Īlthough Bavier played a woman who kept a tidy home, she lived in Siler City in a messy house with 13 cats. In this episode Andy described Siler City as a 25-minute drive from Mayberry. It was featured again in an episode in 1965 as the home of Sheriff Jackson, who visits Andy to see how Mayberry does traffic safety and once more in 1968, in an episode about a cooking show on the local tv station. The small town was the setting for an episode of The Andy Griffith Show (on her birthday, December 14, 1964) as the place where Andy was taken by a game warden for fishing without a license. In 1972, Bavier retired from showbiz and bought a home in Siler City, North Carolina. ![]() She suffered from mental-health issues, and she was hot tempered and could be quite nasty. She had a reputation for being very difficult on the set. It was said that she hated men and did not like children. In 2003, Griffith said in a interview that Bavier called him four months before she died and apologized for being “difficult” during the series run. Griffith admitted the two sometimes clashed. As an actor with Broadway credits, she felt her talent was being overlooked, yet after playing Aunt Bee for eight seasons, she was the only original cast member to remain with the series in the spin-off, Mayberry R.F.D.īavier was easily offended on the set of T he Andy Griffith Show and the production staff were cautious when dealing with her. She was in that episode of Make Room For Daddy, which featured Griffith as Andy Taylor and Howard as Opie, playing a character named Henrietta Perkins. In 1957, she played the mother of Eve Arden’s character on The Eve Arden Show, even though Arden was only six years younger than Bavier. In 1952, she was featured in the Dean Martin / Jerry Lewis comedy, The Stooge. Barley in The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951). In 1951, she starred with Henry Fonda in the play Point Of No Return, which ran for a year.īavier had roles in more than a dozen films, as well as playing a range of supporting roles on television. After graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1925, Bavier’s big break came in the original Broadway production of On Borrowed Time (1938). In that era, an actor could never really be candid about their sexuality.Īunt Bee might have been a gentle soul, a woman who was primarily focused on the kitchen, but in real life, the actor who played her was a fierce, driven career woman.īavier was born in New York City in a brownstone on Gramercy Park. She dated some women but passed them off as “good friends”. He queerness was an open secret to the Andy Griffith Show cast and crew, and in Hollywood gay circles. While the character of Aunt Bee was thought of as “everyone’s aunt” by fans, off the set, Bavier was a far different personality than the woman that she portrayed on television. He proved to be the most popular character. Knotts auditioned for the show’s creator and executive producer, Sheldon Leonard, and was offered a five-year contract playing Barney Fife. Knotts, who knew Griffith professionally and had seen The Danny Thomas Show episode, called Griffith during the developmental of the show and suggested the Sheriff character needed a deputy. The show was filmed at Desilu Studios, with exteriors filmed in Culver City (which looked like a small town at the time) and north of Beverly Hills at Franklin Canyon, including the opening credits and closing credits with Andy and Opie walking to and from “the fishin’ hole”. The complete series is available on DVD and can be seen on Amazon Prime. Reruns of The Andy Griffith Show are still popular. It ran for 78 episodes, ending in 1971 after three seasons. (1964–1969) and a reunion television special, Return To Mayberry (1986).Īfter the series ended with Griffith, it morphed into Mayberry, R.F.D., with Ken Berry and Buddy Foster replacing Griffith and Howard, but as new characters. The series even spawned its own spin-off, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Neither Griffith nor the show won any awards during its eight-season run, yet Knotts and Bavier accumulated a combined total of six Emmy Awards. The series never placed lower than seventh in the Nielsen ratings, ending its final season at Number One (the only other shows to go out at the top of the ratings are I Love Lucy (1957) and Seinfeld (1998). ![]()
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