Don Knotts, the bug-eyed, rail-thin comic actor who scored his biggest success on television when he played Barney Fife, the inept, high-strung deputy on The Andy Griffith Show, died on February 24 in Los Angeles after a long battle with lung cancer. He was 81.

He was born Jesse Donald Knotts on July 21, 1924, in Morgantown, West Virginia, a college town just south of Pittsburgh. He learned ventriloquism as an adolescent, performing in small clubs, but like most young men in his generation, his career was set aside when he enrolled in the Army during World War II. He was assigned to a unit charged with entertaining the troops and it was here that he would work on his standup comedy routines.

After the war, Knotts returned to West Virginia University and earned a Liberal Arts degree in 1948. A year later, he moved to New York City where (as with every actor in the Big Apple) paid his dues with club dates and radio work. He landed his first prominent role in the soap opera Search for Tomorrow, and spent two seasons (1953-55) as Wilbur Peterson - a troubled young man who could only communicate to the outside world through his sister.

In 1955, Knotts made his Broadway as a tense military evaluator in Ira Levin's No Time for Sergeants. He had one memorable scene with the lead of the play - Andy Griffith. So natural was their chemistry together that it would be the beginning of a partnership that would last several decades. He became immensely popular when he was on The Steve Allen Show (1956-60). Playing alongside other comic greats such as Tom Posten and Louis Nye, Knotts held his own as he showed off his dependable comic skills and smarts. His most memorable character would be Mr. Morrison, aka "the nervous man." When interviewed on the street, Morrison was asked whether something was making him nervous and he would reply with a hysterical "Nope!"

Knotts kept in touch with Andy Griffith over the years, and when the topic came up about Griffith's television series about a small town sheriff working and living in an idyllic North Carolina town, Knotts offered his services to play the deputy. Who would have thought that that chance conversation would lead to one of television's most memorable characterizations? For five seasons (1960-65), Knotts played Barney Fife, the jittery deputy to Griffith's Sheriff Andy Taylor. In any other actor's hands, in could have been a lesser role, but infusing Fife with zany, manic energy, and just a touch of humility when Fife knew he overstepped a line, Knotts became a star and won five Emmy awards in the process.

Although he had small parts in previous films, notably: The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961) and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Knotts earned his first lead in the amusing fantasy film The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). The story, about a bookworm who escapes his humdrum life my turning into a fish is one of the earliest examples of a live action and animation mix. The film was a modest hit, and in 1965, he left The Andy Griffith Show to concentrate on movie. Unfortunately, despite the defense of his most ardent fans, the quality of these pictures were mediocre at best. All one has to do is read the titles: The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God (1969) and the regrettable How to Frame a Figg (1971). Repetitive, juvenile, and only mildly amusing at best, these films curtailed his career. Still, Knotts pressed on, and his career was rejuvenated when he acted in a series of popular Disney films: The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975), Gus (1976), No Deposit, No Return (1976), and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977).

Television would welcome Knotts back with open arms. In 1979, he joined the cast of the sexy, hugely popular sitcom Three's Company. Playing everyone's favorite, self-delusional ladies man Ralph Furley, the landlord for Jack, Janet and Chrissie, Knotts stayed on the until the show's cancellation in 1984. After that run, Knotts would resurface in the late '80s with a recurring role with Andy Griffith as his neighbor in Matlock until that series ended its run in 1992.

The truth is, even after Matlock, Knotts was constantly busy, and he did his best film work toward the end of his career: playing a school principle in the kiddie comedy Big Bully (1996); a television repairman that sends Toby Maguire and Reese Witherspoon to a '50s sitcom world in Pleasantville (1998) and most recently, the voice of the turkey mayor in the animated Chicken Little (2005). In 2000, Knotts published a memoir, Barney Fife and Other Characters I Have Known that offers a pretty encapsulating overview to the actor's long career. He is survived by his wife, actress Francey Yarborough; a daughter, Karen; and a son, Thomas.

by Michael T. Toole