I can identify earlier moments that laid the groundwork for the path I would pursue, but Howard’s actually saying it put the thought into my head. Twenty years later, I cast Howard in my third feature film, Splash, as an eccentric marine biologist with expertise in mermaids. I reminded him of his prediction. Howard smiled warmly and zinged me in customary Morrisonian fashion: “And this is what I get for my clarity of vision? A day on a Disney movie?”
My early years of apprenticeship in the trade were not without their disappointments. I was bummed, for example, to discover that I would not get to eat ice cream when Opie had an ice cream scene. The hot lights melted any frozen dessert in a matter of seconds, so my cones were filled with cold, lumpy mashed potatoes. I mean, try licking that and smiling ear to ear as a six-year-old. Now that is some acting to be proud of.
The fried chicken, at least, was real. Reggie the prop man cooked it to order. It was and remains the best fried chicken I have ever eaten. On the days when the script called for Aunt Bee to serve a fried-chicken dinner, a bewitching smell wafted onto the set from the prop room and I could barely focus on my lines.
To land on this show of all shows as a kid was the ultimate stroke of good fortune. Andy oversaw it all as the boss, but he thrived on collaboration and welcomed the cast’s input. My first few attempts at chiming in were politely rebuffed, but one day pretty early on, in the second episode of the second season, I piped up again. On a Friday, the day that we ran full rehearsals before committing an episode to film, I raised my hand to get the attention of Bob Sweeney, our director.
“What is it, Ronny?” he said. I explained that the line that I had just said—I can’t even remember precisely what it was, just that it was an interjection of “Hey, Pa, something something”—didn’t sound authentically kidlike. I pitched my little rewrite of the line, and Bob said, “Good, I like it! Say it that way.”
A rush of satisfaction coursed through me. I guess I didn’t make any effort to hide it, because Andy looked straight at me and said, “What’re you grinnin’ at, young’un?”
I said, “That’s the first suggestion of mine that you’ve ever taken!”
Andy, not missing a beat, said, “Well, it was the first one that was any damn good! Now let’s get on with the scene.”
I doubt that Andy even remembered that moment. But I have carried this revelation, this discovery of my potential to influence others, ever since. My appreciation of how seriously I was taken, as a human being with ideas and agency—not only by Andy but also my own parents—has only deepened with time. Nowadays I am often the veteran on the set. I try to be conscious of the effect that my words and actions have on the people with whom I’m working, mindful of how one single comment could affect someone’s life trajectory . . . just as Bob’s and Andy’s comments affected mine.
The shared-mission aspect of The Andy Griffith Show was a special thing to be part of. I learned that success didn’t need to be painful or punishing, though it did require hard work. Andy made everyone run their lines until they flowed naturally. As soon as we finished one scene, he asked us to pull our chairs together in a circle to start running lines for the next one. This disciplined approach clearly paid off.
We had all been given those director’s chairs with our names on them. No one ever cared about who sat in which chair—we just grabbed the chair nearest to us. So I might have been in Andy’s chair, Andy in Frances’s chair, and Frances in my chair, with no sense of hierarchical protocols and etiquette. I never understood how relaxed our set was until years later, when, post–Andy Griffith but pre–Happy Days, I did an episode of M*A*S*H. I grabbed a seat between Alan Alda and Wayne Rogers to catch up on my high school algebra during a break. Loretta Swit walked in and I didn’t notice her glowering at me. I cluelessly said, “Hey, Loretta, how are you doing?” She replied, “You’re in my chair.” I sheepishly made my exit. That chair clearly meant something to her that no piece of furniture had ever meant to any Andy Griffith actor.