DON KNOTTS

1924 – 2006

He saw the poignancy in people’s pride and pain and turned it into something hilarious and endearing.

Recently while driving the Route 66 leg from St. Louis to Santa Monica, I took a side trip a little off the path to visit the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary.  It is tucked in between parking lots and commercial buildings and without knowing it was there you’d drive right past it.  But, buried there are many of Hollywood’s luminaries—including one of my favorites—Don Knotts.

I first became acquainted with him while watching his antics on the Andy Griffith Show as the bumbling deputy, Barney Fife, a role for which he rightly received five Emmy Awards.  He left that show after five seasons to pursue a movie career which included The Incredible Mr. Limpet, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, The Reluctant Astronaut, among others.  He also went on to portray Ralph Furley on the 1980s sitcom Three’s Company.

His original gravestone was a plain polished gray granite grass marker placed in the cemetery upon his death in 2006.  It was replaced with this bronze marker below in early 2011 depicting Don Knotts in some of his iconic roles on the big screen and television. 

Don Knotts will long be remembered as one of the great characters actors.