You’ve gotta love those eccentric characters surrounding Sheriff Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show, whether you’re talking about Hal Smith as Otis the Drunk, Howard McNear as Floyd the Barber, Don Knotts as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife or Jim Nabors as mechanic Gomer Pyle. And while all of them were beloved and Knotts would leave the show to enjoy success on the big screen, Jim Nabors would bring his character into his own successful spinoff, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
Jim Nabors was born James Thurston Nabors on June 12, 1930 in Sylacauga, Alabama to a police officer and a housewife, and had two older sisters. Although there isn’t a lot known about his childhood, his passion for singing was always there as was the good-natured quality that was second nature, which played no small role in his overall appeal to television viewers.
That being said, there is much more to discover about one of Mayberry’s most popular citizens.
1. Singing was always a part of his life
Whether it was in the church choir or high school glee club, Jim Nabors was always singing, but it was never a situation where he would be performing solo. The closest he came was while attending the University of Alabama, singing at the fraternity house.
Denny Reese, author of Gomer Says Hey! Inside the Manic and Much-Loved Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C., offers, “While in college, besides a love of dancing, another bug hit when Jim fell head over hills with entertaining others. Along with college buddy Jimmy Pursell, Nabors will visit Phoenix City, aka Sin City, known for its raunchy nightclubs and strip joints. Soon the none-too-shy Alabama boy finds himself center stage. He developed an act that he will perform for the rest of his life. It was a combination of a dumb country boy dumbfounded by life and circumstances, offset by his singing operatics. The double-sided act was different enough to attract many fans. Jim somehow found a way to make this work.”
2. His first job…
Jim’s first real job brought him to New York City, where he earned $55 a day working as a typist for the United Nations. “It wasn’t much salary,” he told the Press and Sun Bulletin, “but the work was interesting.”
3. Then he was a film cutter
Moving from New York to Chattanooga, Tennessee, he started working at an NBC affiliate TV station as a film cutter, feeling a need to somehow get a little closer to show business. As he explained it to San Mateo, California’s The Times, what he did was “mostly inserted commercials into late, late movies, but I was sort of in show business, which was just fine.”
4. Jim Nabors was drawn to Hollywood
The appeal of show business, and struggling with asthma in Tennessee, combined to lead Jim Nabors to Hollywood, where his experience at the NBC affiliate led him to become an assistant film editor at NBC there. Simultaneously, he began performing as a singer and comic at a few establishments, including The Horn, a tavern in Santa Monica. The audience — which would become a common theme — was caught by surprise by his high-pitched comedic voice and the baritone he revealed himself to be as a singer.
In his book Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show, author Daniel de Vise writes, “[Jim] would talk in an exaggerated Alabama drawl, then rear back and unleash an aria from Pagliacci in a shimmering tenor . Then he will stop, mid-aria, and revert to his molasses drawl: ‘Waal, you see, there was this clown fella, and everyone thawt he was a really happy fella with that painted smile and awel, but he warn’t happy a bit, cause…’ Jim was caricaturing his own provincial heritage, invoking an ensemble of unflattering stereotypes drawn up by Northeasterners and urbanites. He did with Pagliacci what Andy Griffith had done with Hamlet.”
5. Andy Griffith was a major influence
What had originally brought Andy Griffith fame was his stage persona of a Southerner offering up a unique take on something very American in a routine titled “What it was, was football.” Explains pop culture historian Geoffrey Mark, “He approached it as if a Southerner doesn’t know what football is. Back then it was funny. And at one point he will sing. So that’s what Jim Nabors was doing: the hick act after which he would open his mouth and sing with that gorgeous voice of his.”
Details de Vise, “One Sunday in fall 1962, a mutual friend brought ‘this strange looking man’ to Andy Griffith’s Toluca Lake home and dropped him off, intent that the two should meet. ‘I gave him a bathing suit and let him get in the pool, and I took him for a drive in the car,’ Andy recalled. Two weeks later, the friend escorted Andy to the Horn to see Jim perform. ‘I didn’t want to go,’ Andy recalled. ‘But the man got up and was electrifying.’ Afterward, Andy caught up with Jim on the sidewalk outside.
