Inventor of Electric Football Norman Sas dies at 87

Long before "Madden NFL" video games, there was a table called eccentric toy electric football.

Surely you remember the metal tone. Two teams of 11 soccer players plastic standing on a rectangular base with spikes on the bottom side and a knob.

At the beginning of each game, man "coach" sets players in the desired position and placed the ball in the hands of a. A change occurs, the football field vibrates and moves to the players, often violently in all directions. Sometimes, the player with the ball "turns" in the light of day.

Norman Sas invented the electric football in 1948 and introduced a year later. But it was not until 1967, when he signed a contract with NFL Properties, the licensing division soccer championship for the product, plastic men represented current NFL teams and football really took off electric .

Sas, of 87 years, died June 28 at his home in Vero Beach, Florida, after a stroke, was "one of the true innovators of the land of the toy," said Chris Byrne, content director of timetoplaymag.com, a toy review site.

"Who would have thought that a vibrating metal plate that awakens the imagination of so many children?" Byrne said, adding that the "chaos and unpredictability" of the movements of soccer players gave their electrical magic.

Born in New York in 1925, Anders Norman Sas received a degree in mechanical engineering and business economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before and after serving in the Navy during World War II. He became president of the company from his father, Elmer Metallic Products, New York, Tudor, in 1948.

Among its products were of toy musical instruments and an element of frugality was born of depression: a "budget of the Bank" for the classification of coins and banknotes.

The Norman 23 years old, lost no time leaving their mark. Inspired by a toy horse racing that was vibrant, electric football he came and quickly hit the market.

"The current enthusiasm for football chair strategists!" He said 1949 show in New York while promoting the game, available for $ 5.95 in a department store of A & S on Fulton Street in Brooklyn.

The title was screaming,'' men actually moved to New Electric Football Game! "

Electric football success was such that the Tudor Metal Products changed its name to the Tudor games. Other providers launched their version, but it was a game Sas', which received the approval NFL and landed in the Sears catalog.

In December 1971 Sports Illustrated story identified with grid electricity Soccer - then retail $ 9.95 to $ 14.95 - as the "best seller" among all NFL licensed products.

"For the first 10 years, we have generated more money for the Heritage of the NFL than anyone else," SAS said in a Washington Post article from 1999 in football electrical phenomenon. "Then the [video] games left, and this was the beginning of the end."

Sas retired in 1988 after the sale of Tudor Miggle Toys Toys and Games. He moved to Alpine, New Jersey, in Vero Beach, Florida, 15 years ago. Survivors are his wife of 62 years, Irene, two daughters and seven grandchildren.

About electric football, still smoking and vibrant in this era of video and electronic toys, and there are national competitions sponsored by soccer coaches miniature Assn., A group of fans.

Toys Miggle Electric Football was doing it in February Miggle was bought by a toy manufacturer in Seattle Ballpark Ballpark Classics Inc. restore the name of the company SAS, Tudor Games - a reference to the importance Electric Football agree.

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Champion of Fine Cheese Daphne Zepos Dies at 52

Daphne Zepos, internationally recognized authority in the cheese, the experience includes buy it, sell it, which is especially the almost transcendental experience of eating it, died Tuesday at home in San Francisco. He was 52 years.

The cause was lung cancer, her husband, Brad Brown said.

A writer, lecturer, consultant, importer, and the judge of cheese chef competition, Mrs. Zepos was, like the New York Times wrote in 2005 ", one of the most authoritative voices in the field of American cheese." (In this recognition, "American cheese" is not mentioned in American cheese.)

From 2002 to 2005, Ms. Zepos was associated with the center of artisanal cheese, a vast complex of Brennan Terrace restaurant in Manhattan, where the old cheese before being sent to consumers, stores and restaurants.

In 2006, he helped found the Essex Street Cheese Company. Headquartered in New York, imports and wholesalers, a small number of cheeses of Europe.

The main one is Earl, a cousin of French Gruyere, as Mrs. Zepos enthusiastically told the newspaper San Francisco Chronicle in 2006, it triggers "tsunami wave of burning" in the mouth "and let the incredible flavor of the cream and butter in language. "

Ms. Zepos to talk even more poetic. In the description of sensory pleasures of cheese in particular, her husband said Thursday, could have invoked Homer, Mark Rothko, the soul music of Stax / Volt Records, and the pianist Glenn Gould in a single breath happy.

Last year, Mrs. Zepos became owner of the Cheese School of San Francisco, the country's only independent institution of learning dedicated to cheese.

Ms. Zepos work - as well as his writings on the cheese for the website of The Atlantic magazine and elsewhere - has helped lead the current interest in artisanal cheese consumers in the United States.

"Twenty years ago, the image of cheese, as opposed to a very small percentage of Americans who had traveled much, was actually a cheese of the mass market," Ari Weinzweig, founder and CEO of Zingerman, the concern gourmet foods Ann Arbor, Michigan, said on Thursday. "Today, thanks to the leadership of Daphne and education and training, a much larger portion of the American people understand what is the traditional cheese, and it can be."

Ms. Zepos was the anthropologist as an ambassador, for his journeys in search of a good cheese brought to the farms and pastures of small producers throughout Europe and the United States.

The best of his work, used to say, was imbued with the flavor of the mountains and meadows and the life stories of the cheese makers themselves, or so it seemed.

"I wanted people to support small producers of cheese and understand all the work and love that went into it," said Corby Kummer, senior editor of The Atlantic and a writer on food, Thursday . "He said that people can appreciate the full range of aromas and flavors and how to see and feel the cheese -. Literally Toca'l, who cracks, understanding the structure"

In perhaps his most important role, Mrs. Zepos was gerontòleg cheese. More precisely, it was a refiner, as someone who oversees the aging of the cheese its peak exquisite, carefully calibrated known.

The profession that combines the skills of the artist, chemistry and the nanny, is one in which only a few dozen people in the United States can boast.

It was this work that requires Zepos Mrs. Craft, who chairs the center of five caves, "walk-in refrigerators with tightly controlled temperature and humidity there, the cheese in moderation and with exquisite tenderness -. Years old, transformed sometimes it was washed in wine or beer - before it is considered mature enough to use.

Daphne Zepos was born in Athens July 13, 1959, Costa and Greta Zepos. His father was a Greek diplomat, and was raised in Athens, London, Geneva and Brussels. He studied Medieval History at the University of Kent, England, and architecture at the Architectural Association, a trade school in London.

In 1987, his father became the Greek ambassador to the United Nations, and Mrs. Zepos moved with his family in the U.S.

He studied at the New York School Peter Kump Cooking (now the Institute of Culinary Education), and later worked at Campton Place Hotel in San Francisco, where his responsibilities included assembling the basket buy cheeses and push through the lunch room.

Ms. Zepos first time marriage ended in divorce, she married Mr. Brown, an artist in 1994. He survives, along with his parents and a sister, Amalia Zepou.

To travel with Mrs. Zepos on an isolated farm in the mountains, to attend one of their classes or even start a casual conversation state, his colleagues said to be overwhelming in the presence of an evangelist.

"It has never been so indifferent," said Kummer. "He loved what he did. He liked the people who made the cheese. He loved to see the light in your eyes when you put a piece of cheese in his mouth."

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Martin L. Swig Dies at 78

When viewed today, rare cars, like Lancia Lambda 1925, 1941 or 1953 Tatra T87 1900 Coupe Pininfarina Alfa Romeo are generally fixed, delivered to the sample auto dealerships or inelegant trailers.

With the founding of the California Mille, an event known worldwide and manages classic sports cars of more than 1,000 kilometers of mountain roads of Northern California, Swiga Martin said that people see the cars that do what they should do: eat the hot asphalt.

Swiga Sr., who died Tuesday at age 78, he organized the first California Mille in 1991. The tour of the cars built in 1957 or before, lasting four days from the last Sunday in April, and for many twenty kilometers along the northern coast of California extraordinary view.

Around 75 vehicles around the world join the tour each year, each owner pays nearly $ 6,000 to enter.

Mr. Swiga, who also owned one of the first performances of several major automobile franchises in the United States, died in Greenbray, California, and lived in Sausalito. His son David said he had a stroke on Sunday.

The California Mille is based in the Italian Mille Miglia, an endurance race from Brescia to Rome and back that was from 1927 until 1957. Swiga and Mr. John Lamm of Road and Track magazine has participated in a revival of 1955, the 1982 Alfa Romeo Mille Swiga Mr. Zagat 1900. Then it was about 50 thousand events in Japan and Australia, Italy and California.

The Tour of California requires an exceptionally dedicated unit, said Swiga Sports Car Digest in 2011. "They have a car driving off and not just once a year," he said. "One has to be one with your car."

Many car collectors focus on one brand or model, but the collection of Mr. Swiga about 30 cars is eclectic. In addition to the rarity of the above, has had five different models of Alfa Romeo Giulietta, a pair of 510S and a Datsun Toyota Corona 1968 Hardtop two doors. His most recent was a 2013 Subaru BRZ.

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Michael J. Ybarra dies at 45

Michael J. Ybarra, a former Times reporter who recently told his adventures in extreme sports for The Wall Street Journal, was killed in a climbing fall during the weekend at the edge of Yosemite National Park. Was 45.

An experienced climber, was left alone to cross the rocky crest of the Eastern Sierra and the summit of Matterhorn Peak Sawtooth 12.280 feet before falling to about 200 meters until he died, said his sister, Suzanne Ybarra.

His family reported his disappearance on Sunday, a rescue team and realized that his body on Tuesday in a rugged area of ??difficult access by foot, according to Kari Cobb, a park ranger. His body was found on a hillside, said his sister.

"He died doing what he loved most," he wrote in his Facebook page.

In a statement, the Wall Street Journal Ybarra called "an outstanding journalist. According to the best traditions of his profession has enlightened and engaged readers in a wide range of topics in a clear and lively prose."

Although their activities outdoors often are inherently dangerous, often made jokes about their fears and sometimes face in his writings. A piece he wrote in May last year for the Journal of whitewater kayaking with the title: "When death is only one stroke Away."

That same month, Ybarra, wrote about how "he straddled the edge of the knife between caution and confidence" before the fall frosts during the climb mountains near Bozeman, Montana.

"Climbing a mountain is a serious thing," he wrote in the Journal. "Mistakes have consequences - for you and your partner awake at night wondering if I wanted to go to a rock climbing gym or finding the most sensitive sports like table tennis" ..

About five years ago, in essence, Ybarra decided to live on the road and his car to follow her passion for adventure, said Bret Israel, Sunday Calendar editor of The Times, who met the writer When Ybarra interned in the Metro department of the end of 1980.

Ybarra was also the author of a biography noted, "Washington Gone Crazy", which arose from the report by The Times. The book tells the story of Pat McCarran, a former senator from Nevada who has exercised his power during the anticommunist hysteria of the 1950.

When time was called one of the best books of 2004, the reviewer pronounced "master," said Ybarra and "meticulously recounts McCarran rise to power" in creating "... an indispensable tool nuanced assessment" of a period in recent history.

The biography also was a finalist for the Times Book Prize 2005.

Michael Jay Ybarra was September 28, 1966, in Los Angeles to Eugene Ybarra, Los Angeles Unified School District administrator, and his wife Lillie, a social worker.

During his senior year at UCLA, political science major at times started practice in 1988 one year that included a stint with the Washington Office.

After earning a degree in political science from UC Berkeley in the 1990, Ybarra held various practices and spent four years working for The Wall Street Journal, but took advantage of the limitations of a full time job in a large organization.

As a freelance writer, Ybarra has contributed to numerous publications, including The Times, where he wrote about nature and art in the West for over two decades.

One of his recent articles in The Times about an exhibition in Venice, photo gallery of the Eastern Sierra, will be published on Sunday.

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Versatile Soprano Evelyn Lear Dies at 86

Evelyn Lear, an American soprano who became a star in Europe in 1950 and later won success in the U.S. to sing some of the most difficult roles in contemporary opera, died Sunday at Sandy Spring, Maryland, for 86 years.

His son, Jan Stewart, has confirmed the death.

Ms. Lear, who sang over 90 performances with the Metropolitan Opera in 1960 and later was praised by both sides of the Atlantic for his musical voice warm, expressive and dramatic stage presence.

As recitalist, was also known for his versatility, singing works by composers from Mozart to Schoenberg to Sondheim.

He was best known as an interpreter of Berg. By mid-century Europe, Miss Lear was considered one of the leading interpreters of Berg's Lulu, the convicted murderer of prostitutes in the center of his 1937 opera of the same name.

At the Met, Miss Marie Lear sing atonal opera "Wozzeck" Berg about infidelity and murder.

Review your Marie there in 1969, Harold C. Schonberg wrote in The New York Times that Mrs. Lear was "intelligent, capable of producing floods of well focused tone, remarkably intense." He added, however, that their physical attractiveness has worked against it, making relationship with Marie "this vulture of Wozzeck" implausible.

Evelyn Shulman was born in Brooklyn on January 8, 1926. His maternal grandfather, Savel Kwartin, was a featured singer in Europe and the United States. His mother, Nina Kwartin Shulman, was an opera singer and performer, largely abandoned her career for marriage and motherhood.

Evelyn Young had decided to be a singer when she was 3 years, but was attacked by studying piano and French horn. After an early marriage to Walter Lear, a doctor, ended in divorce, she decided to pursue a real vocal training and enrolled at the Juilliard School.

In 1955 he married a classmate, the baritone Thomas Stewart, who would have appeared frequently in recitals and recordings.

Like many homegrown singers of her time, Ms. Lear and Mr. Stewart worked under the weight of being American. American opera houses of the period showed a preference for the Old World, with first class American singers often transmitted in favor of second-class Europeans.

Mr. Stewart was about to give up music for a job at IBM, where he and Ms. Lear received Fulbright scholarships to study in Germany. He moved to Europe, where they made their reputation.

In 1958, Miss Lear has a lot of warning to sing songs of Richard Strauss' Four Last, "with the London Philharmonic conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. He had learned the score in just four days.

His talent for quick study in his well-served two years later, when the Vienna Festival has requested that you take the role of Lulu - a role that had never sung - in the short term. The work consists of the 12-tone style or "standard" eminently unhummable a technique that uses all 12 notes of the Western musical scale strictly twice.

"Why should this be so difficult condemnadament?" Ms. Lear recalled having thought that he was learning the role. But she has learned in a few weeks, and their performance, with Karl Böhm, has internationalism.

Ms. Lear made its debut at the Met in 1967, with Zubin Mehta, as Lavinia (the Electra counterpart) in the world premiere of "Mourning Becomes Electra." The work of Marvin David Levy, is an adaptation of Eugene O'Neill's work, was a reworking of the Greek myth of Orestes.

In late 1960, suffering from the wear of the voice, Miss Lear lost his voice temporarily. He reorganized his repertoire, switching his attention to Mozart and Italian opera, and his career has been renewed. She sang with the Met until his retirement in 1985.

His other Met roles include Octavian in Richard Strauss's "Knight of the Rose" and his composer in "Ariadne auf Naxos", Cherubino in Mozart's "nozze di Figaro" and Donna Elvira in "Don Giovanni", Alice Ford in Verdi "Falstaff", and in subsequent years, the Countess Geschwitz in "Lulu".

Stewart died in 2006. Ms. Lear, who lived in Rockville, Md., is survived by his son, Jan, a daughter, Bonni Stewart, and two grandchildren.

With her husband, she founded the Evelyn Lear and Thomas Stewart Emerging Singers Program, under the auspices of the Wagner Society of Washington DC

If Ms. Lear was best known for appearing in the work of murder, incest and such things, then his reputation, he explained, not inconvenienced her.

"I like Handel, Mozart and Strauss, and I like my heroines too modern neurotic," he told The New York Times in 1967. "I've never been afraid to make a bad sound on stage, because it is real and reality is never ugly."

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Researcher on Divorce Judith Wallerstein dies at 90

In 1970, preschool teachers Marin County psychologist Judith Wallerstein asked, how to deal with a flood of children who could not sleep, cried constantly, or were too aggressive with their playmates. The common denominator, the teachers said, was that parents were divorced.

Wallerstein tried to investigate the issue and, not finding anything useful, it was decided to undertake.

She has launched what would become 25 years of research, producing alarming results that have been long married grandmother of five, a polarizing figure in a contentious national debate.

Once described by Time magazine as the "godmother of the reaction against divorce," died on June 18 in Wallerstein Piedmont, California, after surgery for an intestinal obstruction, said his daughter Amy Friedman Wallerstein. He was 90 years.

When Wallerstein began to see the impact of divorce, the children would be difficult fleeting thought. Instead, he discovered that half of the 131 children studied, the time has not healed the wounds, but was allowed to become worse, creating "question, underperforming men, young self-ironic and angry sometimes, and women "who, of course, is very strained relations with romance.

In light of this delayed effect, Wallerstein came to a controversial conclusion: if parents could swallow their misery, they must remain together for their children.

"What in many cases may be the best because parents can not be the best for children," he told Newsday in 1994. "It's a real moral problem".

She wrote about the consequences of divorce in several books, including "Second Chances: Men, women and children ten years after divorce" (1989) and "The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce" (2000). Co-author Sandra Blakeslee, books on news, talk shows and Wallerstein put on the covers of magazines, and became a bestseller.

The values ??of family supporters embraced the research of Wallerstein, but critics found much to criticize. Many critics said that his sample was too small, had no control group for comparison and that was to favor families with psychological problems that preceded the divorce.

The larger studies and scientific experts from other family members have supported some of the results refute Wallerstein and others.

Andrew J. Cherla, Johns Hopkins University sociologist, who wrote the 2009 book "The Marriage-Go-Round," he said last week that the contribution of Wallerstein, "was to show that the effects of divorce may appear sometimes delay in young adults - something she calls an effect of "inactive".

Despite the warning that their findings apply mainly to families in distress through a divorce, Cherla said that his work remains influential.

"People still cite and argue for or against it," said Cherla.

Wallerstein began his studies at a good time. In 1970, California became the first state to implement no-fault divorce, and other states quickly followed suit. Divorce rates began to rise.

With a case study, Wallerstein recruit families who had sought marriage counseling to his therapy center in Corte Madera. Concludes with a group of 131 children from 60 middle-class families who were going through divorce in Marin County in 1971.

Children were interviewed every five years for 25 years and found that half of young adults had problems such as anger, depression, alcohol abuse, physical abuse and school failure. The development of intimacy and trust was particularly hard.

"What he had told his parents for years was that divorce is difficult for children, but eventually, had to adapt," he told The Times in 2000. "We did not know that its effects would be so powerful for so long, that would be a factor in young adults in search of love."

In 1990, he realized that two decades of life on the effects of marital failure and had not been depressed, so he decided to study the problem and Blakeslee, wrote "The Good Marriage: How and why love lasts , "published in 1995.

Judith Wallerstein Saretsky was born in New York and a child has lived for 10 years in what was then the territory of British Mandate of Palestine.

He studied at Columbia University and the Institute of Psychoanalysis in Topeka Kansas, and received his doctorate in psychology from the University of Lund in Sweden.

From UC Berkeley, Dr. Wallerstein has received the Distinguished Teaching Award, and has received many awards for his research, writing and clinical work.

He is survived by her husband of 65 years, Dr. Robert Wallerstein, president of the department of psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco, two daughters, Amy Friedman of Piedmont and Nina Wallerstein of Albuquerque, and five grandchildren. A son, Michael, a scientist at Yale University known politician, died in 2006.

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Oakland Raider Ben Davidson dies at 72

Ben Davidson, the iconic face of a 1960-Oakland Raiders and later became a fixture in popular ads for Miller Lite, has died. He was 72.

Davidson, who had been treated for prostate cancer, died Monday night, former Raiders coach John Madden told KCBS radio in San Francisco.

If the deceased Al Davis was the creator of Renegade Raiders, then Davidson might be considered one of the founding fathers, by cutting a strip larger than life with his mustache and intimidating 6-foot-8 with end of the physical presence defense.

The 11-year career as a professional footballer began with the Green Bay Packers.

After one season there and two with the red leather-Washington, who fled when he moved to the AFL and the Raiders in 1964. "It was an AFL All-Star three times and played in Super Bowl II with the Raiders.

The career of Davidson was rarely predictable. Born June 14, 1940, in Los Angeles, did not play sports as a child growing up in Boyle Heights and would not give up football after his freshman year at East Los Angeles College.

"I think I decided I would try," he told The Times in an interview in 2010 home in San Diego. "I did not know the positions. I knew the center was probably in the middle, but I had one or two games."

Davis was shot in the eye back to Davidson when Davis was an assistant coach at USC. Davidson moved from East Los Angeles College, University of Washington and has won two Rose bowls with Huskies in 1960 and 1961.

Davis and Davidson were finally able to join forces in Oakland, after Davidson arrived a year after Davis.

"We had fun," Davidson said in an interview in 2010.

That was an understatement. The sense of fun and Davidson football made him a person was denied a natural firaire television after his football career, most prominently in ads for Miller Lite.

His first film role was the 1970 Robert Altman's "MASH", which brought a slice of the Raider Nation 4077, playing in a football game intersquad.

"I hate to say this to the press," Davidson said in an interview in 2010. "But I have 70 years and have never had a real job."

His most important moment of controversy in the field was in 1970. It was then pulled the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Len Dawson, the end of a game, Dawson dives in with his helmet when Dawson was on the floor. Chiefs receiver Otis Taylor said open, so that in a deck of banks.

Finally, a 17-14 lead into the final of the leaders and the Raiders 17-17 to win the AFC West.

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Actor Andy Griffith dies at 86

Andy Griffith, actor tempering the South so fascinated the public for over 50 years on Broadway, in film, on record, especially on television - especially as the sheriff of the small town in the sitcom long duration that bears his name - died Tuesday at home in Roanoke Island, North Carolina.

He was 86 years.

His death was confirmed by the Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie.

Griffith was already a star with rave reviews on Broadway in "No time for sergeants" and Elia Kazan movie "A Face in the crowd" when "The Andy Griffith Show" made its debut in autumn of 1960. He loved a later generation of viewers in 1980 and 90 in the role of legal drama "Matlock."

But his fame has never been as great as it was in 1960 when he starred for eight years as Andy Taylor, Commissioner of intelligent fiction southern town of Mayberry, current herd includes a weekly eccentric as his deputy ineffective Barney Fife and the ingenuity of the gas station attendant Gomer Pyle and, as a widower, patiently raising a young son, Opie.

"The Andy Griffith," Monday night on CBS was No. 4 ranking in the Nielsen its first year and never fell below the Top 10. It was No. 1 in 1968, his last season. After the race ended with episode No. 249, the show lived series spin-off, endless repetition and even Sunday school classes organized around their moral lessons rustic.

The show imagined a world soothing soak holes, ice cream social events and rock hard for over a decade of family values ​​that has grown increasingly turbulent. His vision of rural simplicity is part of a trend that began with the TV show "The McCoy" on ABC in 1957 and later included "The Beverly Hillbillies," "Green Acres", "Petticoat Junction" and "Hee Haw".

But at the end of 1960, the networks have appreciated younger viewers Cornpone despised, and Andy decided to go to the movies after the 1966-67 season. CBS made a very lucrative offer for him to do another season, and "The Andy Griffith Show" has become the No. 1 series in the 1967-68 season.

But Mr. Griffith had decided to go ahead, and so also the spirit of the age. "Rowan & Martin Laugh-In" with his statements about drugs and Vietnam, and "The Mod Squad", an integrated police force, have been grabbing a new generation of viewers.

But the characters of "The Andy Griffith Show" - Barney (Don Knotts), Gomer (Jim Nabors), Opie (Ron Howard), Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier), and the rest, including Gomer Pyle's cousin Goober (George Lindsey, who died in May) - has remained temptadorament real lovers who still collect online and sometimes in person at the club fans to see replays.

Andy Griffith was much more complex than Andy Taylor and his fellow residents of Mayberry, but the show was based in his hometown, Mount Airy, North Carolina

Since the initiative in the Elia Kazan movie "A Face in the crowd" in 1957, the story of a TV character who becomes a crude power-mad megalomaniac, Mr. Griffith has authenticity to their roles given a dark intelligent.

From 1970 to 1990, Mr. Griffith has starred in six films with the "murder" or "kill" in their titles. In 1983, in "Murder in County Cowetta" has played an evil man who is terribly cold stone while he was tied to the electric chair.

Mr. Griffith, the fans probably imagined as a taujà happy, but he liked the life in Hollywood and he knew his way around a wine list.

His career was controlled by a personal manager, Richard O. Linke, which prohibited Mr. Griffith to request the views of anyone, not even his wife.

"If there is ever a question about something, I'll do what he wants me to do," Griffith said in an interview with the New York Times Magazine in 1970. "If not for him I would have gone to the toilet."

Far from relaxing, sociable Taylor, slurred Andy, Mr. Griffith was a lonely and anxious. When you reach a door in anger, and two episodes of the second season of "The Andy Griffith Show" had a bandaged hand (explained in the program as Sheriff Taylor suffered an injury while stopping criminals).

But the 35 million viewers of "The Andy Griffith Show" was reassuring to know that, even at the height of his popularity, Mr. Griffith was driving a Ford pickup truck and bought the clothes hanger. He said that his honor is preferred, 10-mile stretch of road in North Carolina that bears his name in 2002. (That was before President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.

As TV Guide reporter put it in an article in 1963 about the popularity of the series: "The dialogue - read with joy by Griffith intelligent, uncompromising seriousness Knotts - requires an exceptionally high level of performance of comedy and solid understanding of the subtleties of character. "

Considered the driving force behind the series, Griffith was heavily involved with the production of the show and helped shape the script and characters.

George Lindsey, who joined the series in 1965 as Goober, told the Times in 1993: "He is probably the best script constructionist who ever lived." Griffith added, "I found 110% since we took him to his level."

Ron Howard, who grew up to become one of Hollywood directors, Griffith believes that "such a wonderful guy for me."

Howard told People magazine in 1986 that Griffith "created an atmosphere of fun and hard work to try to make my films."

When Griffith and most of the major cast members met to "Return to Mayberry" in 1986, was one of television's top rated movie of the year.

"The backbone of our show is love," Griffith once said. "There's something Mayberry and Mayberry folk who do not leave you."

The small town atmosphere represented in Mayberry was not far from his childhood Griffith in Mount Airy, North Carolina, a small village at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where he was born on 1 June 1926.

An only child, Griffith grew up singing and playing guitar with his mother. He learned to tell funny stories of his father, who made their living modestly in Mount Airy Furniture Co.

Griffith holds a BA in music at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and dreamed of becoming a professional singer on stage. On a whim, she auditioned for a campus production of Gilbert and Sullivan "The gondolers".

"I liked it," Griffith recalled in a 1996 interview with National Public Radio. "I had two songs, both alone. I have received good reviews. He said I had a great time and represented the comedy is leading all the Gilbert and Sullivan did while I was there."

After graduating in 1949, Griffith teaches music at a high school in Goldsboro, NC, but he and his first wife, Barbara, singer and musician who was a member of the university theater group, continued to perform at Carolina North annual popular outdoor theater, "The Lost Colony" at Roanoke Island.

One thing that has always bothered Griffith was recruiting people that their interpretation of Sheriff Taylor was practically the same game. He said not only was devoted to the creation of a character designed for the small town sheriff, but also co-wrote almost every episode - even if not received credit for writing.

"You're supposed to believe in the character," said Griffith. "You must not think: 'Hey, Andy makes a storm."

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