![]() ![]() “I went to see her one time in Siler City, I went to see her unannounced, and she flew all over me because I had come unannounced. “I hadn't talked to her in a long time,” Griffith says. It was when he and Ron Howard (Opie) had rang her doorbell in 1985, unannounced, to try and talk her into doing at least a cameo as Aunt Bee on Return to Mayberry which was filming nearby. In a late-1980s TV interview, Andy Griffith talked about the last time he spoke with Frances Bavier. What few visitors she had in her final years, store clerks and deliverymen mostly, were overwhelmed by the peeling paint, filthy living conditions, and an atmosphere steeped in soft cream clouds of ammonia that hung over everything like a suffocating umbrella.Įven her ‘Smart New Look’ Studebaker sedan fell prey to the furry Borg, the immaculate vinyl interior shredded, its Chevrolet 355 cubic inch V8 engine impossibly clogged with animal dander. She loved her feline companions so much she converted her two hundred fifty square foot downstairs bathroom into a sprawling cat box. ![]() No wonder she took to living out of her back bedroom with fourteen devoted kitties for company. ![]() Week after week the same goobers would bump into her asking, “Was that Opie I saw mowing your yard on Saturday?” She’d want to scream, “Why are you fixated on my yard?!?” Young couples would follow her down the aisles of Byrd's Lo Mark grocery store, “You’re not making pickles this summer are you, Ain’t Bee?” There were unceasing invitations to Sunday services wherever she went, “Don’t forget, you went to church in Mayberry,” delivered with a sickly-sweet, curt grin… insult to injury, that was one of Aunt Bee’s signature bits on the show. They had a saying in these parts, “God turned the country on its side and all the nuts fell into California.”Ī visit to the town center meant all eyes casting judgment on her every move, the ladies at the beauty parlor never forgave her for not joining their church. Sure, it’s all kissy-kissy, ‘Can I get you some more sweet tea, Hon?’ but you will always be that person who moved to town in 1972… from California no less. In the South, particularly in that era, if people knew your family you were accepted in the community newcomers were kept at arm’s length. ![]() Even the few townsfolk she was close to insisted on calling her “Aunt Bee.” Irritating, but she had to have some friends. On Saturday mornings school buses pulled up in front of her split-level brick home on West Elk Street to let the Cub Scouts out with instructions to, “Go find your Aunt Bee.” Folks were peering through her windows at all hours of the day, everyone expecting her to be in character at all times, a role she didn’t care for at all. Grand Marshall in the parades, an honored guest at civic functions, a flower of verisimilitude as she maneuvered the narrow streets of Siler City in the very same pea green 1966 two-door Studebaker Daytona she drove on Mayberry RFD now seen five days a week in syndication.īut what began as an immersion in Americana collapsed into a menagerie existence, like a black and white Twilight Zone episode. She was warmly bosomed into this community of 3,700 aw-shucks-just-plain-folks. In this mythical shire mentioned so fondly in scripts produced for her by former writers from Amos & Andy and Leave it To Beaver she hoped to find the small town goodness she herself came to represent in the minds of middle America. She didn’t care much for people either, one of the reasons she moved-alone at age seventy-all the way across the continent to Siler City, North Carolina where her biggest fan operated a family furniture store. A Broadway and motion picture performer turned small screen superstar who, in 1970, abruptly decided to take the money and run a year before her Top Ten sitcom Mayberry RFD left the air.Īfter fifteen years of the grind of a weekly television series she’d had it with the business of show. Hardly the domesticated matriarch, Ms Bavier was a sophisticate who resided in New York and Los Angeles her entire life, working alongside screen legends like Bette Davis and Henry Fonda. That was the only year the Griffith/Mayberry show(s) fell out of the top 15, after there was no more Aunt Bee.įrances Bavier, the Emmy-winning actress who gave life to Aunt Bee on The Andy Griffith Show was, by all accounts, the polar opposite of her alter ego. The only original cast member, Frances Bavier, continued to play Aunt Bee on the new series.īavier left Mayberry RFD in 1970, the series was cancelled after the next season. When Andy Griffith left The Andy Griffith Show in 1968, the production continued on as Mayberry RFD. Is hands down the best site on the Web for classic TV.' ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |