Andy Griffith, dead at 86

I was looking at Andy Griffith's filmography on imdb.com. There were things I had forgotten about, like the TV series Salvage One and the movie Hearts of the West in which he plays a stuntman performing in early Hollywood westerns. And there were things I never heard of, like The New Andy Griffith Show and a TV series called The Headmaster.

And there was the evil Andy Griffith in the movie A Face in the Crowd. And there was the evil Andy Griffith in a movie called Savages, his first role as a lawyer---an evil one who hires Sam Bottoms as a hunting guide. He ends up hunting poor Sam.

That was 1974. Things were different in those days. Sam Bottoms spends most of the movie in his underwear being hunted in the desert by Andy Griffith. I remember the scene where Griffith cheerfully drinks a nice big glass of water while Sam---without food, water or clothes in the desert heat---watches.

There was the semi-evil Andy Griffith as a folksy con artist on an episode of Hawaii Five-O.  And episode called "Don't Shoot - I'm a Family Crook".

I didn't realize he was in the mini-series Washington Behind Closed Doors or Centennial.

It was reported that Andy Griffith died today at age 86. He had a more varied career than I realized.