The Boys : A Memoir of Hollywood and Family(59)

I nevertheless hit five of my six free throws in that game. But I can’t pretend that those kids’ taunts didn’t affect me. They pissed me off. The word that I would use now, which I didn’t know then, is reductive. I resented that these mean-spirited teens were publicly mocking and ridiculing me for a role that I had played, and I resented the corresponding insinuations: that I must be a pampered TV star, a lame-ass, a wimp.

I’ve had a complicated relationship with that famous whistled theme song. By and large, I regard it positively: it evokes fond memories of Andy’s warmth and the joy that we took in working together. But there were times in my life when that damned song was the bane of my existence. I’d be in a public place, ballcap pulled low, calling no attention to myself, when I’d hear a faint version of the tune tootling from someone’s lips—and that’s when I’d know that I had been made. In school, I would sometimes be at my locker, minding my own business, trying to find a homework assignment that I had misplaced, when behind me I’d hear whistling along with derisive laughter—and that’s when I knew that I was being mocked for some jerk’s amusement.


FOR ALL THE aggravation that being Opie had occasionally caused me, I was devastated when The Andy Griffith Show came to an end. Truthfully, I knew that the finish line was in sight at the conclusion of the fifth season, when Don Knotts announced that he was leaving to make movies. Andy soldiered on for three more seasons, and they were good seasons—but it was apparent to everyone on set that he wasn’t having as much fun without Don.

So, when the show wrapped its eighth and final season in 1968, it was downright destabilizing. We were going out on top, literally—the ’67–’68 season was the first in which we were the number one show in the Nielsen ratings, drawing thirty-five million viewers a week. Some of my castmates, such as Frances Bavier and George Lindsey, were going to continue on with the Griffith show’s sequel series, Mayberry R.F.D., in which Ken Berry took over the lead role. But I would not be joining them. The producers had offered me a reduced role in the new series as a semiregular, but this excited neither me nor my parents. If Andy wasn’t going to be in it, I wasn’t going to be, either. I passed.

We had a big wrap party at Desilu to celebrate the end of our show’s massively successful run. CBS pulled out all the stops, catering the affair and hiring Andy’s favorite swing band, Les Brown and His Band of Renown. All the men and women with whom I had worked since the age of six, in front of and behind the camera, were there. I was fourteen and determined not to cry. Then Andy announced through a microphone that he wanted to speak. “I want to thank y’all for your good work,” he said. “You didn’t just make a successful TV show. You brought the town of Mayberry to life. In doing that, you brought my childhood to life again, week after week. I can’t tell you what that means to me.”

At this, I started to lose the emotional battle. Andy’s words jolted me, making me recognize something I had not yet come to terms with. My boyhood had taken place here, on this soundstage. Now it was coming to an end—or at least a major chapter of it was. I realized that I would never again see these familiar faces on a regular basis. I lost it—I started weeping inconsolably in front of everyone. It was so embarrassing.

Fortunately, my mom was there to help me put things in perspective. My emotions, she said, were a recognition of what the show and all its people had meant to me. But this moment also represented a new beginning, a door opening to the next phase of my life, which was full of promise. This “mother knows best” moment calmed me and allowed me to enjoy the party, at least a little.

Ninth grade marked the first time in my life where I was a student for pretty much the whole school year. I was called into a meeting with my guidance counselor, Mr. Cira, to discuss my future. He asked me if I wanted to go to college and I replied in the affirmative.

“Then I don’t think that you should act anymore,” Mr. Cira said. “Based on the grades and test scores you have now, you’re not on a college track. So let’s think about giving up the acting and working on school.”

I did not appreciate what I perceived to be his condescension, but I held my tongue. It’s true, I had been a mediocre student for most of my childhood. But I made plain to Mr. Cira that I had no intention of stopping acting. Then I doubled down on schoolwork, studied harder, and got straight A’s for the first time in my life. I sure showed that Mr. Cira! Which, I realize now, is exactly what he wanted me to do.





CLINT


When we came back for Season Two of Gentle Ben, we had every reason to believe that our show was going to be around for a while. We had a major sponsor in the Eastman Kodak Company, which took out a huge ad for us in New York’s Grand Central Station: a backlit cast photo, sixty feet wide by eighteen feet high, that used Kodak’s Colorama technology. There was more money in the shooting budget, we had better production values, and most of all, we had momentum.

But by the spring of 1969, after just two seasons, I was, like Ron, a boy without a series. Shooting the second season had been a great experience for me. I became a better actor and spent more time operating the airboat. We even recorded a Gentle Ben cast album, The Bear Facts, that was slated for release at the season’s end. A hippie vocal group called the Good Time People backed us. I performed a spoken-word version of the show’s theme song, which to that point had no lyrics, entitled “I Am the Way I Am.” Dennis Weaver sang a psychedelic song called “Cobwebs of Your Mind.” Dad did a goofy novelty song called “Don’t Cry Little Gator.” And he and I performed together my favorite of all the songs, a wiggy duet entitled “What’s a Whatchamacallit?”