Andy Griffith net worth is $65 Million. Also know about Andy Griffith bio, salary, height, age weight, relationship and more …

Andy Griffith Wiki Biography

Andy Samuel Griffith was born on 1 June 1926, in Mount Airy, North Carolina USA, and was a renowned American actor, television producer, writer and singer. Andy rose to prominence after being cast in “A Face in the Crowd”(1957) but what really helped him carve his niche was bagging the role of the lead character in the eponymous situation comedy, “The Andy Griffith Show”(1960-68). Andy Griffith passed away in March 2012, after a career in the entertainment industry spanning more than 50 years

So just how rich was Andy Griffith? Andy’s net worth is estimated to amount to $65 million, his net worth sky-rocketing after his breakthrough. The fact that Andy was actively involved in acting, producing, music and writing explains the accumulation of this impressive figure.

Andy Griffith’s family was working class; Andy was an only child who was left with his relatives ’til his parents could manage to pay for a house. He attended Mount Airy High School where he took a keen interest in arts, drama and music. He graduated from the University of North Carolina with a Bachelor of Music degree, and was the head of the UNC chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, America’s oldest committee for men in music. Later, he went on to teach music and drama at Goldsboro school and also took to writing.

After appearing in a number of teleplays and musicals, Andy made his debut in “A Face in the Crowd” in 1957, which was a success at the box office. In 1960, Griffith got his big break on TV in “The Andy Griffith Show”(1960-1968) which he was roped into for the main lead, Sherriff Andy Taylor, for the CBS television network; the show was ranked the 9^th best show in American television history by TV Guide, and won six Primetime Emmy Awards. However, in 1968 he quit the show to pursue a career in movies, but after working in a number of films, Griffith returned to television as Ben Matlock, in the legal drama “Matlock”, which was nominated for four Emmys. Griffith started his own production company, Andy Griffith Enterprises in 1972.

In his music career, Andy actually sang in some episodes of his self-titled TV show, but also released several albums, and won a Grammy Award for Best Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album in 1997. He also recorded a number of religious-type albums, the most successful being I Love to Tell the Story: 25 Timeless Hymns, which was certified platinum by RIAA and also won a Grammy.

In his personal life, Andy Griffith married Barbara Bray Edwards in 1949, and they adopted two children, Andy Samuel Griffith and Dixie Nann Griffith, but then divorced in 1972. He was then married to Greek actress Solica Cassuto from 1973 to 1981. Griffith married Cindi Knight on 12^th April 1983, a union that lasted until his death.

Aside from the entertainment industry, Andy endorsed the presidential campaign of Barack Obama and was attributed the credit for Attorney-General Mike Easley’s victory as he appeared in Easley’s campaign commercial. Andy also appeared in several commercials for Ritz crackers, Medicare, AT&T etc.

Andy Griffith had several relatively severe health problems – in 1983 he was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome, and was paralysed for weeks. In 2000 he had a quadruple heart by-pass, and in 2007 underwent hip surgery after a fall. He died aged 86, on 3^rd July 2012 from a heart attack at his house in Manteo, Roanoke Island, North Carolina.

IMDB Wikipedia $65 Million 1926 1955 2003 2012 6 ft (1.83 m) A Face in the Crowd A Face in the Crowd (1957) Absolutely the Best (2002) Academic degree Academic dress Actor Actors Adams of Eagle Lake (1975) Aedes Aedes aegypti Agence France-Presse Andy Andy Griffith Andy Griffith Jr. Andy Griffith Net Worth Andy Samuel Griffith Andy Taylor Associated Press Back to Back Hits (2003) Barbara Griffith Barbara Griffith (m. 1949–1972) Barney Fife Barre Betty Lynn Carl Lee Griffith Christian Music Hall of Fame (2007) Cindi Knight Cindi Knight (m. 1983–2012) Colonial Records Comedian Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album (1997) Destry Rides Again (1959) Dixie Griffith Don Knotts Executive producer Favorite Old Time Songs (2000) Floyd Lawson Gardasil Geneva (Nunn) Grammy Award for Best Southern Guillain–Barré syndrome Headmaster (1970) Health Heart Hollywood Walk of Fame HPV vaccine Human papillomavirus July 3 June 1 Kansas City Lake Wylie Make Room for Daddy (1960) Manteo Matlock Matlock (1986–1995) Mayberry Missouri Mount Airy Mount Airy High School Nationality No Time for Sergeants (The United States Steel Hour North Carolina North Carolina Music Hall of Fame (2010) Onionhead (1958) Presidential Medal of Freedom (2005) Return to Mayberry (1993 Ritz Crackers Salvage 1 (1979) Screenwriter Singer Solica Casuto Solica Casuto (m. 1973–1981) Somebody Bigger Than You and I (1972) Songs South Carolina Television Television Hall of Fame Television Producer The Andy Griffith Show The Andy Griffith Show (1960–1968) The Christmas Guest (2003) The New Andy Griffith Show (1971) The Yeagers (1980) Theatre World Award (1956) Thelma Lou Themes and Laughs from the Andy Griffith Show (1961) Tony Awards (1956) United States United States Coast Guard United States of America University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill Vaccine Voice Actor White American Writer

Andy Griffith Quick Info

Andy Griffith Trademarks

1. Frequently wore gray suits or blazers on Matlock (1986).
2. Gruff, gregarious voice
3. Both of his characters have driven 2 separate Ford automobiles: on The Andy Griffith Show (1960), he drove a Ford Galaxie and on Matlock (1986), he drove a Ford Crown Victoria.
4. Slow, Southern drawl
5. Often recounts classic stories and histories with a folksy point of view. These include: Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra, and Christopher Colombus discovering America
6. Most all of his characters have a folksy, friendly personality
7. Commonly plays the accoustic guitar and sings folk or gospel songs

Andy Griffith Quotes

• People started saying that Mayberry was based on Mount Airy. It sure sounds like it, doesn’t it?
• It’s the damnedest thing I ever heard of. There are books of all kinds, trading cards, videotapes of the shows. Fan clubs? Oh, there’s several of them. They have conventions and things. I can’t go; I’m working. But a lot of the others from the old show. But I just can’t, while I’m doing this show I can’t [find the time to] do anything else.
• [In 1991]: I can’t tell you how surprised I was – until my wife admitted she had torn out the page of the article that had included me. I deserve worst dressed – both as Andy Griffith and as the character I play. Away from the set, I only wear Levi’s jeans and Lands’ End shirts and tennis shoes. And for six seasons on ‘Matlock,’ I’ve been wearing the same rumpled gray suit.
• Hell, I’m just not comfortable with it. But isn’t this one beautiful piece?
• [In 1989]: I always wanted to bring a show here. I thought it would be good for the town and good for the company.
• [on comparison his sociable sheriff role to his sociable lawyer role]: I’m not going to retire. I cannot live without comedy. I write a lot on ‘Matlock,’ too, and I put a lot of comedy in it. Sometimes the writers make Matlock is a very bright man, but he’s vain.
• [on working off-camera on- the set of _”Matlock” (1986)]: I do my best in the mornings. I’ve also asked to put the grueling courtroom scenes at the end of the week’s filming, so that I have time to learn all the lines. They have, all but twice – and those two times were nightmares. Learning lines in front of the crew is one of the most difficult things you can do.
• [In 1986]: There ain’t no way you’re going to do an hour show every week and go home to Mayberry.
• [In comparing himself to one of his characters]: I am from a little town in North Carolina. I have chosen to keep one foot in that life and my other foot in this life and I’ve had success with that. This man does the same thing. He is from a little community outside of Atlanta, and he has chosen to keep one foot in that life and the other foot in this life. So far as his being a country lawyer, he’s the kind of guy that will let you believe anything you choose to believe as long as it works in his corner.
• [In 1987]: They saw me as more of a personality than an actor, and I didn’t get much work.
• [In 1996]: I’ll be 70 on June 1. I don’t want to make a living – I mean, I do. I really don’t have to. But I want to work for my mind and my spirit. I know how to do a couple of things, and I can sing a little, and I can act, and I can write a little, so I wanna try that.
• If you think and feel what you’re supposed to think and feel, hard enough, it’ll come out through your eyes – and the camera will see it.
• [on being released from Universal Studios – while being typecast as Andy Taylor]: I wanted to prove that I could play something else, but there were 249 episodes out there of ‘Mayberry,’ and it was aired every day. It was hard to escape.
• [on filming a 2-part Matlock (1986) episode in his hometown]: During all the years of the old Griffith show I tried to talk them into filming something in North Carolina, but they said, ‘Why? They already think you’re in North Carolina anyway.’
• [When he used a televangelist as his model]: I did an impression of Oral Roberts, and near the end, I took Elia Kazan’s head in my hands, and I healed him, I walked out of that restaurant with the part.
• I still play that guitar. It’s a Martin D-18 with a clear pick guard. I’ve played that guitar on and off my TV shows for nearly 50 years.
• I was baptized alongside my mother when I was 8 years old. Since then, I have tried to walk a Christian life, … And now that I’m getting older, I realized that I’m walking even closer with my God.
• [For making Chapel Hill, which is where he went to college, proud of him]: I am proud of my connections to Carolina and pleased to know that some results from a lifetime of work on television, film, stage and recordings will have a permanent home in Chapel Hill.
• [How he valued Don Knotts as an actor/best friend]: I loved Don. There was no one like him.
• [on his off-camera relationship with Frances Bavier, who played Aunt Bee] There was just something about me she did not like.

Andy Griffith Important Facts

• According to Cindi Knight, she called 911 for her husband, because he was very sick. His widow heard that Griffith was vomiting, who was also found unconscious, who was also slumped over and wasn’t responding to anything. He’d been ill, for 1 night, who also got outside and inside his wheelchair, and stopped breathing. The ambulance rushed over to his house, and got to Griffith, until the paramedics were unsuccessful in reviving him.
• He was the surrogate grandfather to all of Ron Howard’s 4 children: daughter Bryce Dallas Howard, twins Jocelyn Carlyle and Paige Howard, and son Reed Cross Howard.
• Taught his Matlock (1986) co-star, Clarence Gilyard Jr. how to be very funny, and being a straightman to him.
• He suggested to his Matlock (1986) co-star, Clarence Gilyard Jr., to live in North Carolina, for the show’s seventh season on ABC, after production would no longer filmed in Los Angeles, for NBC, fortunately for Gilyard, he did, for over a year.
• Was very preventive with the scripts on Matlock (1986).
• Was involved in every writing of the script of both of his series: The Andy Griffith Show (1960) and Matlock (1986).
• Born on the same date as Marilyn Monroe.
• In 1962, Griffith was one of the actors to have ruled the ranks of other sitcom male lead stars, such as Danny Thomas, John Forsythe, Alan Young, Robert Young, Fred MacMurray, Buddy Ebsen and Ernest Borgnine.
• Like his best friends Don Knotts and Dick Van Dyke, Griffith was known to be a very private man.
• Retired and living in Manteo, North Carolina. [January 2003]
• Released Christmas CD of songs/stories. [2003]
• Had suggested Ron Howard to write some scenes for The Andy Griffith Show (1960).
• Was a spokesperson for the PSA Tree Farmers in the 1970s.
• While working in New York, doing a play ‘Destry Rides Again,’ Griffith was approached by Danny Thomas and Sheldon Leonard, for their first choice as the lead role of Sheriff Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show (1960), as a spin-off of Thomas’s Make Room for Daddy (1953), he accepted the role.
• After starring in 2 unsuccessful series Headmaster (1970) and The New Andy Griffith Show (1971), he returned to working in nightclubs.
• After his relocation to Manteo, Roanoke Island, North Carolina, he met his third and final wife, Cindi Knight, in the play ‘The Lost Colony.’.
• He suggested Dean Hargrove and Fred Silverman film a two-part episode in his real-life hometown of Manteo, North Carolina, for the beginning of the fourth season of Matlock (1986).
• After Brandon Tartikoff saw him in Fatal Vision (1984), he called Dean Hargrove and Fred Silverman to suggest hiring Griffith for the lead role in Matlock (1986), which was his comeback to television after 18 years.
• Was a staunch Democrat.
• Survived by his wife, Cindi Knight, of 29 years and 1 daughter.
• Played the guitar on both series: The Andy Griffith Show (1960) and Matlock (1986).
• He purchased his first trombone at age 15.
• An only child.
• He commuted from his coastal home in North Carolina to Los Angeles every weekend for the first 6 years while starring in Matlock (1986) on NBC.
• Before he was a successful actor, he used to sweep the schools, where he got paid $6 a month.
• Relocated to Manteo, Roanoke Island, North Carolina, from 1983 to 2012.
• Acting mentor and friends of Ron Howard, Kene Holiday, Nancy Stafford, Clarence Gilyard Jr. and Daniel Roebuck.
• Was the only actor to appear in all 249 episodes of The Andy Griffith Show (1960).
• Played the same character, Andy Taylor, five times on four different shows and one movie: Make Room for Daddy (1953), The Andy Griffith Show (1960), Gomer Pyle: USMC (1964), Mayberry R.F.D. (1968) and Return to Mayberry (1986).
• Before he was a successful actor, he worked at various nightclubs in New York City, playing music and doing acting.
• His comedy record, “What it was, Was Football”, sold more than 900,000 copies in 1953.
• Met Dick Van Dyke in 1954, in New York City. They become friends for over 55 years.
• His parents, Geneva Nunn and Carl Lee Griffith, were married in late 1918, just shortly after World War I. The couple had Andy 8 years later.
• His mother, Geneva Nunn Griffith, was a housewife and caregiver, and his father, Carl Lee Griffith, was a carpenter.
• His first wife Barbara Griffith was a dancer, a singer and soprano.
• Was the only actor to appear in all 195 episodes of Matlock (1986).
• Had auditioned for and won the leading role of ‘The Carolina Playmakers,’ while attending college.
• Met R.G. Armstrong and future wife Barbara Griffith in the play, ‘The Carolina Playmakers’, at the University of N. Carolina-Chapel Hill, in 1945.
• His decision to end Matlock (1986), in 1995, was because he wanted to spend more time with his family. He would reprise his role one more time, with Dick Van Dyke, in a 2 part episode of Diagnosis Murder (1993) in 1997.
• Childhood friend of Emmett Forrest.
• At Mt. Airy High School, he fell in love with performing arts and participated in school plays.
• His hobbies included golfing, fishing, playing guitar, politics, boat rowing, singing, Bible and reading.
• After his role on Play the Game (2009), he retired from acting at age 83.
• Began writing when he was age 15.
• Andy Griffith passed away on July 3, 2012. Just 24 days after his death, his longtime colleague, actor R.G. Armstrong, passed away. They were best friends for over 65 years.
• Was always involved with every detail of the script of both shows: The Andy Griffith Show (1960) and Matlock (1986).
• His mother introduced him to playing the guitar.
• Andy Griffith died on July 3, 2012, at age 86, and just 5 days before Ernest Borgnine, who died at age 95.
• Within five hours of his death, he was buried in the Griffith Family Cemetery on the island of Manteo, North Carolina.
• An old friend Dick Van Dyke guest-starred on the debut pilot episode of Matlock (1986). Years later, Van Dyke reunited with Griffith on Diagnosis Murder (1993), where Griffith kept his role as Ben Matlock.
• He played the same character (Sheriff, Andy Taylor) on four different series: Make Room for Daddy (1953), The Andy Griffith Show (1960), Gomer Pyle: USMC (1964) and Mayberry R.F.D. (1968).
• He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6148 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
• Andy Griffith and George Lindsey, a co-star from The Andy Griffith Show (1960), died less than 2 months apart. Lindsey’s life-loss was in May 2012 and Griffith’s life-loss was in July 2012.
• Unlike Lucille Ball and Jackie Gleason, Griffith disliked the idea of using a studio audience for his own sitcom, The Andy Griffith Show (1960), because he felt it would give him and his co-stars pressure to deliver their one-liners, so the series was filmed almost like a movie allowing for the actors to have quiet scenes and for the fictional town of Mayberry to feel like a real place.
• Andy recorded a speaking role in Brad Paisley’s song, “Waitin’ on a Woman”, about a old man imparting romantic advice to Brad. Griffith played the role for an accompanying music video.
• Griffith’s album, “I Love to Tell the Story: 25 Timeless Hymns” won the 1997 Grammy Award for Best Southern Gospel, Country Gospel or Bluegrass Gospel Album.
• In 2010, he appeared in a series of TV commercials advocating for the Health Care Reform bill proposed by President Barack Obama. The commercials were withdrawn after Griffith received hundreds of death threats from opponents of the bill.
• Friends with: Shirley Jones, Danny Thomas, Don Knotts, Dick Van Dyke, and brother Jerry Van Dyke, Bill Bixby, Gavin MacLeod, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, David Carradine, Dick Van Patten and wife Pat Van Patten and sister Joyce Van Patten, Rance Howard, Jack Dodson, Dabbs Greer, Betty Lynn, Aneta Corsaut, Mitchell Laurance, Arlene Golonka, R.G. Armstrong, Hal Smith, Ken Berry, George Lindsey, Denver Pyle, Jim Nabors, Fred Silverman, Dean Hargrove, Sheldon Leonard, Aaron Spelling, Roddy McDowall, Angie Dickinson, Mickey Rooney, William Schallert, Walter Matthau, James Drury, James Best and Patricia Neal.
• Remained good friends with Clarence Gilyard Jr. and Daniel Roebuck throughout Matlock (1986), before the creation and after it was canceled.
• Remained good friends with Ron Howard during and after The Andy Griffith Show (1960).
• Has a long association with ex-The Andy Griffith Show (1960) co-star, Ron Howard, before and after the show’s cancellation. Howard guest-starred on an episode of Griffith’s short-lived series, Headmaster (1970) in 1970, and he hosted Saturday Night Live (1975) in 1982, when Andy made a surprised appearance as Andy Taylor.
• On the longer-running and more popular The Andy Griffith Show (1960), Ron Howard co-starred as his son, “Opie Taylor”. Ron Howard’s biological mother, Jean Speegle Howard, guest-starred in one episode, Matlock: The Doctors (1987), of Griffith’s second long-running show, Matlock (1986), in 1987.
• At least five actors and actresses named him as their favorite actor or comedian: Jack Dodson, Aneta Corsaut, Betty Lynn, Arlene Golonka and Don Knotts, all guest-starred with him on Matlock (1986).
• Inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame and Museum in 2007.
• After a fall, he underwent successful hip surgery, on Wednesday, September 5th, 2007.
• His decision to end The Andy Griffith Show (1960), in 1968, led him to a contract with Universal Studios, where he pursued a movie career.
• His characters had driven 2 separate Ford automobiles on both of his series: The Andy Griffith Show (1960) and Matlock (1986).
• Graduated from Mount Airy High School in Mount Airy, North Carolina in 1944.
• Before becoming an actor, he was a comedian and a singer.
• While attending high school, he looked up Ed Mickey, who was a minister at Grace Moravian Church, who was also a musical band leader, in the brass instruments, Ed Mickey taught Andy Griffith how to play the trombone, successfully.
• Before Andy’s parents had purchased a house, he lived with relatives. Without a crib or bed, Andy slept in drawers for a few months, just a couple of years after he was born.
• Taught English at Goldsboro High School in Goldsboro, North Carolina for a period of time.
• Was idolized by: Nancy Stafford, Clarence Gilyard Jr., Daniel Roebuck, Randolph Mantooth, Katie Couric and Matt Lauer.
• He and Don Knotts were best friends from 1955 to Friday, February 24, 2006, when Don Knotts lost his life.
• Best known by the public for his starring roles as Andy Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show (1960) and the title character in Matlock (1986).
• The town of Mayberry on “The Andy Griffith Show” is based upon Andy Griffith’s hometown Mount Airy, North Carolina. By the same token, the characters on the show will commonly mention the “sister city” of Mount Pilot. Mount Pilot does exist, but its true name is Pilot Mountain, and has the same basic geographical positioning to Mount Airy as Mayberry does to Mount Pilot. The towns in both reality and the series are about 15 miles apart. Both towns (in both universes) are north of Winston-Salem, North Carolina near the North Carolina and Virginia state borders.
• Was on same stage with Elvis Presley in The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956). It was Steve Allen’s second show, after Allen piloted his debut, with more popular celebrities, Bob Hope, and others were in the debut and pilot, the previous week, and Allen’s show skyrocketed in popularity.
• Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush on Tuesday November 9th, 2005. Other recipients were Frank Robinson, Muhammad Ali, General Richard Myers, Paul Rusesabagina, Carol Burnett, Aretha Franklin, Vint Cerf and his Internet co-developer Robert Kahn, Jack Nicklaus, Alan Greenspan, and former congressman Gillespie “Sonny” Montgomery.
• During a 1959 performance of the Broadway musical “Destry Rides Again”, in which Griffith starred opposite Dolores Gray, a small fire broke out backstage at the Imperial Theater. Although it was put out within a few minutes time, without causing any major damage, just enough smoke drifted toward the stage that there could have been a panic had not Griffith and Gray continued on with the scene as though nothing was happening. For their bravery, they were rewarded by the audience that night with a standing ovation and by the New York City Fire Comissioner with citations for heroism.
• Was twice nominated for Broadway’s Tony Award: in 1956, as Best Supporting of Featured Actor (Dramatic) for “No Time for Sergeants,” and in 1960 as Best Actor (Musical) for “Destry Rides Again.”
• Andy Griffith’s longest and most popular character role of Andy Taylor, on The Andy Griffith Show (1960), was ranked at number 8 in TV Guide’s list of the “50 Greatest TV Dads of All Time”, in Sunday, June 20th, 2004’s issue.
• Biography in: “Who’s Who in Comedy” by Ronald L. Smith, pg. 195-196. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387
• He recorded some albums of standup comedy, including one titled “Just for Laughs”. Among his classic routines is “What It Was, Was Football”, about a country bumpkin who witnesses his first football game.
• Attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Music in 1949. He originally attended school to study to be a Moravian preacher before he changed his major. His social life in college included: President of UNC Men’s Glee Club and membership in Alpha Rho Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the US’ oldest music fraternity for men.
• He was the Tuesday night host for CBS Radio’s “Sears Mystery Theater” (1979). He was still Tuesday’s host when it became “The Mutual Radio Theater” on Mutual Radio (1980).
• On May 9, 2000, he successfully underwent a quadruple bypass surgery.
• In 1987, when he accepted the People’s Choice Award, he said he was happy it was for Matlock (1986). He said that Matlock (1986) was his favorite character to date.
• His two children, Andy Griffith Jr. and Dixie Griffith, were from his first of three wives, Barbara Griffith, as they decided to be parents, by adoption.
• His son, Andy Griffith Jr., died of alcoholism, in 1996.
• Suffered from Guillain-Barre Syndrome and couldn’t walk for 7 months. [1983]

Andy Griffith Filmography

Andy Griffith Awards