Andy Griffith pinned Elia Kazan ‘against the wall’ to demand “A Face in the Crowd ”role, “Matlock” star says
Andy Griffith pinned Elia Kazan ‘against the wall’ to demand “A Face in the Crowd ”role, “Matlock” star says
Ryan ColemanFri, October 2, 2026 at 2:39 AM UTC
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Andy Griffith; Elia KazanCredit: ilver Screen Collection/Getty; gettyKey Points -
Linda Purl is looking back on an unhinged story she recalls hearing from her Matlock costar, Andy Griffith.
Purl says that Griffith told her he went to extreme lengths to win the lead role in Elia Kazan’s paranoid 1957 drama, A Face in the Crowd.
“Andy said, ‘I took him by the shirt collar. I put him up against the wall and said, You don’t understand. I am that man. And then I got the part,’” Purl recalled.
Still think of Andy Griffith as the lovable, “gee shucks” star of his own sitcom? Think again.
Linda Purl, Griffith’s costar on season one of his beloved procedural, Matlock, sat down for a wide-ranging interview about her varied career on Monday’s episode of the Still Here Hollywood podcast. Looking back on her brief but memorable time with Griffith, she remarked that the world only “saw a fraction of what he was capable of doing as, as an actor.” But they did get a taste with his dark, harrowing turn in Elia Kazan’s paranoid 1957 satire A Face in the Crowd.
“It’s funny, he would bring that up. [At] this lunch, Andy told one story to great detail and great hilarity over the entire lunch, [about] how he was cast in that film,” Purl explained.
Andy Griffith and Linda Purl for ‘Matlock’Credit: NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection
According to the star of such classics as Happy Days and The Office, Griffith was working on the Broadway production of Ira Levin’s No Time for Sergeants when he came upon Budd Schulberg’s script for A Face in the Crowd and thought, “‘That’s my role. That’s for me.’”
But Griffith, who wasn’t yet known the world round as a wholesome comic star, but was rising in the field, wouldn’t even be seen for the part. “So he found out Kazan’s office and he went and he sat in the foyer with the secretary just waiting, day after day, whenever he could,” Purl said. Rejection persisted, and one day, when he “knew that Kazan was in the office he barged into the office.”
Griffith made his case, or so he told Purl, who then told Still Here Hollywood host Steve Kmetko. And Kazan “was impressed with the chutzpah of this handsome young hick to break into his office,” but Griffith could tell he still wasn’t getting the part.
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So he resorted to desperate measures.
“Andy said, ‘I took him by the shirt collar. I put him up against the wall and said, You don’t understand. I am that man. And then I got the part,’” Purl recalled.
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Andy Griffith in ‘A Face in the Crowd’Credit: John Springer Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty
Griffith did ultimately land the part of Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, a down-on-his-luck drifter who becomes a local radio sensation after a random publicity gimmick, and rises to such dangerous heights of fame that his character is compromised. Though it wasn’t nominated for any major awards, A Face in the Crowd is remembered as one of Griffith’s finest screen performances.
Though she only spent a single season on Matlock with Griffith, Purl recalled the Hollywood legend as “brilliant and complex... I mean, archetypal raconteur. Funny, of course, we know. Brilliant. He was an intellectual. That was Andy Griffith.”
You can watch Purl’s full appearance on the Still Here Hollywood podcast above.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
