Beloved U.S. actor Griffith dies at 86

RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) ― Andy Griffith, who made homespun Southern wisdom his trademark as the wise sheriff in “The Andy Griffith Show” and the rumpled defense lawyer in “Matlock,” died Tuesday. He was 86.

Griffith died about 7 a.m. at his coastal home, Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie said in a statement.

“Mr. Griffith passed away this morning at his home peacefully and has been laid to rest on his beloved Roanoke Island,” Doughtie told the Associated Press, reading from a family statement. 

President Barack Obama said he was saddened to hear of Griffith’s death and called the actor an extraordinary talent.

Griffith had suffered a heart attack and underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 2000.

His career spanned more than a half-century on stage, film and television, but he would always be best known as Sheriff Andy Taylor in the television show set in a North Carolina town not too different from Griffith’s own hometown of Mount Airy, North Carolina.

Griffith set the show in the fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina, where Sheriff Taylor was the dutiful nephew who ate pickles that tasted like kerosene because they were made by his loving Aunt Bee, played by the late Frances Bavier. He was a widowed father who offered gentle guidance to son Opie, played by Ron Howard, who grew up to become the Oscar-winning director of “A Beautiful Mind.”