The Andy Griffith Show was a hit comedy that ran from 1960 to 1968. Griffith starred as its central character, Andy Taylor, a sheriff in the fictional town of Mayberry.

While filming the series, he reportedly engaged in an affair that wasn’t a secret among his co-stars.

Andy Griffith was married during ‘The Andy Griffith Show’

Griffith was born on June 1, 1926. The actor attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after high school. In the 1940s, he earned a Bachelor of Music degree and served as the school’s music fraternity president.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was also where Griffith met his first wife, Barbara Edwards. After realizing they were both singers, the couple worked and traveled together to pursue their careers. When they got married in 1949, the pair saved their money for a few years before moving to New York for auditions.

Eventually, their hard work paid off when The Andy Griffith Show became successful in the 1960s. According to MeTV, the show turned out to be an excellent opportunity for Edwards personally and professionally. She appeared on an episode of the series, which allowed her to have her first and only acting credit.

Griffith reportedly proposed to Aneta Corsaut ‘two or three times’

Andy Taylor had several love interests on The Andy Griffith Show. However, he soon fell for Helen Crump, played by Aneta Corsaut. On the show, Andy and Helen got married, and she helped raise his son, Opie Taylor (Ron Howard). In real life, however, the relationship between the actors was a little more complicated. They developed a romantic relationship behind the scenes, even though Griffith was married.

Author Daniel De Visé wrote about the bond between the co-stars in his 2015 book, Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show. In the biography, the author claimed that Griffith proposed to Corsaut multiple times, despite being married to Edwards.

“Andy couldn’t get enough of Aneta,” he wrote. “Eventually, he proposed, even though he was already married,” the author said. “He popped the question at least once and possibly two or three times, as Aneta hinted in later years. She turned him down.”

Griffith married two other women before he died

Griffith and Corsaut never made it down the aisle. However, they remained friends after his divorce from Edwards.

“Andy would have to settle for marrying Helen Crump, in the glare of studio lights, on a spinoff of the Griffith Show,” Visé wrote. “But he and Aneta would remain a couple for years, and friends for life.”

Eventually, the actor remarried twice. His second marriage to Solica Cassuto lasted from 1973 to 1981. After eight years together, the couple divorced, and Griffith met Cindi Knight shortly after that. Although he was 56 and she was 27, they decided to wed on April 12, 1983. They remained together until Griffith died of a heart attack in 2012.