People always ask Dixie Nann Griffith, daughter of the late, beloved actor Andy Griffith, whether her father was like Sheriff Andy Taylor.
While the actor was an icon to millions for his role as Mayberry’s wise and gentle sheriff, to longtime Denver resident Dixie Nann Griffith, “he was just my dad,” she said repeatedly Friday.
Andy Griffith died Tuesday at the age of 86 at his home in Manteo, N.C.
To his daughter, the outpouring of grief and inquiries from media outlets internationally was difficult to handle.
“Tuesday was very surreal to me. I had the TV on. There was part of me that really didn’t believe this even though I knew my dad had been ill for years,” Griffith said. “For the millions of his fans and people who loved him, he represented something else. But he was my dad.”
Griffith, who has always maintained the family’s privacy, finally turned off the phone and left town for a day. But the calls keep coming.
“So many people wanted to be a part of him. It goes back to the time when his show was on. It was such a sweet show, representing Americana at its best,” she said. “We long for that in a way — the easier times, the gentler times.”
Griffith loved watching his shows, as do her three daughters, raised in Denver. Her favorite of her dad’s movies is “Waitress.”
“It was the most beautiful movie,” she said. “I have a copy, of course. I’ll probably watch it again soon.”
He was nothing like the crotchety old man he played in that film, she said.
She considers the 2008 music video Griffith did with country artist Brad Paisley, “Waitin’ on a Woman,” to be one of his “most profound” roles.
“It brought tears to my eyes every time I saw it. They showed it on ‘Entertainment Tonight’ the other night — it just brought up those memories,” she said. “I obviously have tears now thinking about it.
“He won a Grammy (for a gospel album) at 70! Not many people can say that.”
After the news of her father’s death, she spoke with Jim Nabors, indelible as Gomer Pyle.
“We shared some memories and some laughs,” Griffith said. “Not many of the cast members are left.”
George Lindsay, who played Goober on “The Andy Griffith Show,” died in May; Don Knotts, the unforgettable Barney Fife, died in 2006.
Dixie Griffith, the daughter of Griffith and his first wife, Barbara Edwards, does volunteer work in Denver and is “proud to support the Denver Hospice.” She recalled her father as a “very hands-on dad, a lot of fun.”
Reading scripts for “The Andy Griffith Show” while on a blow-up raft in his pool, “he’d put down the script, get in the water, put me on his shoulders and throw me.”
Many of her memories involve antique cars, boats, motorbikes or motorcycles, weekend barbecues in California and summers in North Carolina, where her dad lived on the Roanoke Sound.
“He’d make us wear one of his old-timey caps in the rumble seat of his antique car,” she said.
When she was 12, her parents divorced, and she went to live with her mother. (Her father was subsequently married two more times.)
Dixie Griffith never wanted a career in show business. She doesn’t remember ever being on the set of her father’s show, which ran from 1960 to 1968, but she did join the costumers union after high school and served as an apprentice on two of his TV movies.
“I could have been on the producers roster. I chose not to. Same goes for growing up. I didn’t grow up in the spotlight. Of course,” she said, “this was before people hid in the bushes outside your door and there were cameras everywhere. My dad was fiercely protective of us. I respected his privacy all my life. I have kept a pretty low profile, which I still plan on doing.”
According to Dixie, one of her daughters recalled her grandfather Andy this way: “He was so cute. I loved his adorable Southern accent. He was so generous, and he spoiled us.”
She demurred on the subject of when she last saw her father.
“It’s been a couple of years, due to traveling, school,” she said. “There’s a lot involved in that.”
Her father was sick for years and had “numerous issues,” she said. He died of a heart attack following years of coronary artery disease, hypertension and hyperlipidemia.
“He had a very strong will to live and to enjoy his life,” she said. “And he did enjoy his life. One of his favorite things to say, when I’d share news of the girls, was, ‘Well, isn’t that grand!’
“Those words came to me the other day. That sums it up. He was grand, and it was grand.”
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830, jostrow@denverpost.com or twitter.com/ostrowdp
