Andy Griffith's Wife First Captured His Heart with Song

Andy Griffith's wife Barbara Edwards caught his heart in a very profound way. She did so through song.

Most of us know Andy Griffith or have heard of his stardom on the hit show The Andy Griffith Show. There’s some candid history between the lovers, which their daughter Dixie took some time to reveal.

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Her parents first met at Carolina Playmakers Repertory Theater at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The two were there as performers. Andy heard her vocals and immediately took a fancy to the young lady.

“My dad was quite taken by my mom’s operatic soprano voice,” she shared.

Andy ventured off to college to become a preacher, but had a change in heart and pursued music instead. He graduated in 1949, and that same year, Barbara became Andy Griffith's wife. What started off as an interest in a beautiful woman who could sing became so much more.

Ten years before The Andy Griffith Show came into being, Barabara and Andy traveled across North Carolina performing in different places.

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Andy Griffith's wife even surprised some, those who noticed, by making an appearance in her husband’s hit show. Her presence was nothing but a cameo, but she did appear as part of the Mayberry choir for an episode in the fourth season.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Masters,” she says to the choir director. She also spends some time in the episode singing.

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The hit comedy series went on for eight seasons over the course of eight years. There were 249 episodes in total.

Sadly, where love had once blossomed between the two, they would later find themselves separated and divorced. After 23 years of being married, they were suddenly apart in the year 1972. Barbara Griffith passed away at the age of 53 in 1980. Andy passed away at the age of 80 in 2012.

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Though the couple has passed on, they have left behind them their daughter Dixie, and son, Andy Griffith Junior, to help keep their story alive.

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h/t: Outsider

Featured Image Credit: Facebook/The Andy Griffith Show Wiki

Aaron D'Anthony Brown is a freelance writer, hip-hop dance teacher, and visual artist, living in Virginia. He currently contributes to Salem Web Network’s Crosswalk platform and supports various clients through the freelancing website Upwork. He's an outside-the-box thinker with a penchant for challenging the status quo. 

Get in touch with him at aarondanthony.com and check out his debut short story anthology Honey Dreams on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.