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Don Knotts

Comedic actor Jesse Donald “Don” Knotts (July 21, 1924-February 24, 2006) will be forever remembered as the nervous deputy Barney Fife on TV’s The Andy Griffith Show.

Knotts’s parents, Jesse (1882-1937) and Elsie (Moore) (1884-1969), were married in 1904 in Greene County, Pennsylvania, where their oldest son Ralph, known as “Sid” (1906-1987), was born. They soon moved to what has been described as a “broken-down farm” near Morgantown, and Elsie gave birth to two more sons: Willis, or “Bill” (1908-1983), and William Earl, “Shadow” (1910-1941). They bought, fixed up, and resold other old farms in the area while raising their own crops and mining coal on the property for personal use. Based on census records, Jesse also worked as a wagon driver for a logging operation and as a “car builder” for coal mines.

In 1919, five years before Don’s birth, his father suffered a mental health episode from which he never fully recovered. Knotts’s biographer Daniel de Visé has suggested that Don’s father struggled with undiagnosed schizophrenia. After Jesse’s health began to decline, Elsie moved the family to Morgantown, where Don was born. They first lived on Jefferson Street in Westover and, by 1929, had moved to 2147 University Avenue in Morgantown, renting a house from the Galushas, who operated a local grocery. The family lived on the first floor, and Elsie sublet the second floor primarily to college students. Among Don’s early memories is his mother spending “half her time chasing girls out of the rooms she rented to male students.”

Tensions abounded in the household. During the Great Depression, the family struggled financially, and the condition of Don’s father, exacerbated by alcoholism, worsened. Don later recalled his enraged father pulling knives on him. He was also bullied by an older alcoholic brother. According to Visé, Knotts channeled his childhood anxieties into the “nervous man” character that eventually made him famous.

During these years, Knotts became increasingly close to his mother and escaped the grim realities of home through radio comedies and occasional movies at the downtown Metropolitan Theatre. Older brother “Shadow” had a knack for slapstick and inspired Don’s sense of humor. It was a devastating blow when “Shadow” died of complications from asthma in 1941.

After his father’s death in 1937, Don grew more outwardly social. He sent away for magic tricks and soon became adept at ventriloquy. Whenever possible, he pulled his best friend Richie Ferrara—the musician son of Italian immigrants—into the act and wrote original material for lunchtime school shows. Jarvis “Jarvie” Eldred later joined the group, and they performed as the Radio Three, playing for churches, school activities, and community groups.

Knotts later described his years at Morgantown High School as the “happiest and most fertile” of his life. He worked part-time as an usher at Morgantown’s Warner Theatre and was elected president of his senior class. He later joked about his class presidency, noting that he spent much of his time telling jokes at assemblies and writing a humor column for the school newspaper, a fact briefly alluded to (as a high school sports column) in season five of The Andy Grifffith Show.

After graduation, Knotts and friend Ray Gosovich headed to New York City to audition for the Major Bowes Amateur Hour. After failing a ventriloquist audition for another show, Knotts returned to Morgantown, cleaned chickens at Raese’s grocery, and enrolled at West Virginia University. He majored in drama while living with his mother and working at the campus employment office. He joined Phi Sigma Kappa and lent his ventriloquism talents to fraternity parties and talent shows. However, the university radio station turned him down for an announcing job, asserting his voice was not suited for radio.

In 1943, he was drafted into the army. He was one pound too light to qualify (referenced in another episode of The Andy Griffith Show) but signed a waiver allowing him to serve. He was assigned to Detachment X, a Special Services unit dedicated to entertainment during World War II. Knotts and his comrades performed in the South Pacific, often near active fighting. He regained confidence in his comedic skills while tiring of ventriloquism. When commanders urged him to remain a ventriloquist, Danny—the dummy he used in his act—suddenly disappeared into the Pacific Ocean, never to be seen again.

After the war, Knotts returned to Morgantown to finish his degree. Now a seasoned entertainer, he started getting better-paying comedy jobs. He also met fellow student Kathryn “Kay” Metz, the daughter of a Baptist minister from Wheeling. They married on December 27, 1947, and he graduated from WVU the next spring. But jobs for comedians were scarce. While Knotts was selling toys at a Morgantown department store, the store Santa Claus encouraged him to give New York another try. With $120 in his pocket (including $100 borrowed from a brother), Don and Kay Knotts hit the road for New York.

While working odd jobs, Don met with Lanny Ross, a radio host he knew from the war. Ross connected him with talent agent William Morris, who booked Knotts on the popular Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts radio and TV shows. He made his TV debut in 1949. Knotts tried his hand at stand-up comedy, but his homespun jokes fell flat in the Big Apple. However, he soon wound up on Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders radio show, portraying Windy Wales, styled after the Western comedic actor Gabby Hayes. He quickly became the show’s most popular character. He also took on side jobs in dramas, including a recurring two-year stint on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow, opposite future Oscar winner Lee Grant.

His big break, though, came after appearing in both the Broadway and screen versions of No Time for Sergeants with Andy Griffith in the 1950s. His brief but standout performance earned Knotts a regular spot on the Steve Allen Show, most memorably in his “nervous man” persona.

In 1960, when Griffith began his own TV show about a small-town sheriff, Knotts suggested that the sheriff needed a deputy. The rest is history. During his five years as a regular cast member on The Andy Griffith Show (1960-65, or the “black-and-white episodes”), Knotts received three Emmy Awards, defeating the likes of George C. Scott, Robert Redford, and his future costar in The Apple Dumpling Gang film series, Tim Conway. Originally, Griffith envisioned himself as the comedic lead, but as he soon realized, “By the second episode, I knew that Don should be funny and I should play straight.” After leaving the show as a regular, Knotts earned two additional Emmys for returning guest appearances.

He starred in a number of feature films, failed in his own TV variety shows, but successfully returned to TV from 1979 to 1984 as the meddling landlord on Three’s Company, which costarred fellow West Virginia native Joyce DeWitt. In the 1980s and 1990s, Knotts performed in a number of stage productions and appeared occasionally on Griffith’s show Matlock. He received acclaim for a supporting role in the 1998 film Pleasantville.

Knotts and Kay Metz divorced in 1964. He was married to Loralee Czuchna from 1974 to 1983, and to Frances Yarborough from 2002 until his death in Los Angeles four years later.

In 1998, a portion of University Boulevard in Morgantown was renamed in his honor. On July 23, 2016, artist Jamie Lester’s statue of Knotts, as Barney Fife, was unveiled in front of the Metropolitan Theatre, where a young Don had first discovered the world of movies.

e-WV presents West Virginia Public Broadcasting on Don Knotts