Jim Nabors, TV’s Gomer Pyle and baritone singing star, dead at 87

Jim Nabors, whose wide-eyed character Gomer Pyle was so popular on The Andy Griffith Show that he got his own spinoff and whose surprisingly sonorous baritone singing voice made him a successful recording artist, has died. He was 87.

“Golll-ly!” was just one of many corn-pone catchphrases that propelled the hit ’60s show’s naive and lovable Mayberry gas-station attendant to popularity (beating out others like “Garsh!” and “Sha-zam!”).

When CBS decided that Pyle would leave Mayberry for the military, he became Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., where his childlike innocence would constantly rattle his Marine sergeant. The spinoff lasted six seasons. Read more…

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