(CBS News) Actor Andy Griffith, whose portrayal of a rural sheriff in a
popular 1960s TV show earned him the title of "America's Favorite Sheriff," died Tuesday morning. He was 86.
Pictures: Andy Griffith, 1926-2012
Read more: Celebrities remember Andy Griffith
His death was confirmed in a statement from the Dare County, N.C.,
sheriff's office. Griffith died at his home on Roanoke Island, Dare
County, N.C., at approximately 7 a.m.
"Andy Griffith passed
away, after an illness ... Mr. Griffith has been laid to rest on his
beloved Roanoke Island," explained a statement from Griffith's family.
"Andy
was a person of incredibly strong Christian faith and was prepared for
the day he would be called Home to his Lord," the actor's wife, Cindi
Griffith, said in a statement.
CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports that while Griffith's
long career stretched from nightclubs to radio to movies to music, it
was a role as a small-town sheriff that made him beloved to millions of
Americans.
Viewers tuned in to "The Andy Griffith Show" not to watch Sheriff Andy
Taylor solve big crimes, but to watch him solve the little problems of
life in the fictional Mayberry, N.C. Don Knotts played Deputy Barney
Fife, and Jim Nabors portrayed Gomer Pyle, the gas pumper. Most critics
consider the show, which ran from 1960 to 1968, one of the top four or
five sitcoms ever shown on television.
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