Knotts, Don

▪ 2007

Jesse Donald Knotts  American actor (b. July 21, 1924, Morgantown, W.Va.—d. Feb. 24, 2006, Beverly Hills, Calif.), first gained the attention of television audiences as the skinny, nervous, bug-eyed man-on-the-street interviewee on The Steve Allen Show in the late 1950s and in the 1960s went on to greater fame—and five Emmy Awards—as bumbling deputy Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show. From 1979 to 1984 Knotts portrayed a would-be swinger landlord on Three's Company. He starred in the films The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964), The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), and The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), and he provided the voice for Mayor Turkey Lurkey in the animated film Chicken Little (2005).

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