The Evolution of Don Knotts

The euphemism "character actor" is elegantly condescending. Every actor plays characters. Most often, the term simply means an actor who has managed to have a career despite certain physical defects or peculiarities. (It's a blind-date phrase. "Is she cute?" "Um, she's got a great, uh, character.") But for a few notable actors it means more: they don't simply overcome the shell that God encased their talents in but rather make their appearance part of their performance. Paul Giamatti jumps to mind, and one of the godfathers of this breed of actor was Don Knotts, who died Friday at age 81. (Another, by the way, was Darren McGavin, who used his blunt-nosed mug to hard-boiled effect as Mike Hammer and Carl Kolchak, and died Saturday at age 83.)

In roles like Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, Knotts played his skinny, google-eyed physique for laughs, which was obvious and well appreciated enough. What made him special was that he used his specific appearance to portray a specific set of human foibles. He was TV's patron saint of continual flabbergast and perpetual surprise, an average guy for whom average life — even as a sheriff's deputy in a sleepy Southern town — was always just slightly too much. He carried the persona over to his movie roles as well: who else would you have picked to portray  Henry Limpet, a man-turned-fish whose very name suggests a poor overwhelmed creature forsaken by evolution?

Plenty of Knotts' obituaries focus on his best-known role, Fife, but I'll remember his '70s-'80s TV act as Ralph Furley, the randy, hopelessly dweeby landlord on Three's Company. (He succeeded Norman Fell and Audra Lindley, who were spun off on The Ropers, but he played on the show for several years longer.) Knotts was best known for a family show and kids' movies, so it's easy to think of him as a desexualized man-child. But he showed his range in the broad sex-farce character of Furley, the horny, nosy old man both confused and tantalized by the Sexual Revolution. He was a laughable character, but you also had to admire him: born a generation too early for free love, he nonetheless embodied the unstoppable human libido, dorky outfits, skinny neck, pop-eyes and all.

Knotts showed us, brilliantly, that even people of "character" could be full of the comical passions of life. And even limpets want to get some.