Which Emmy-Winning Actor Started Out His Career as a Ventriloquist?

Don Knotts. The man, the myth, the legend…the ventriloquist?

That’s right! Long before he was Barney Fife, Don Knotts was a ventriloquist. Born in Morgantown, WV in 1924, Knotts began sharpening his comic skills in high school. He flitted between church and school functions, performing as both a ventriloquist and comedian. After high school, Knotts set off to the Big Apple in search of a big break that never came.

Well, not until much later, at least.

Dejected, he returned to the waiting arms of the Mountain State, where he enrolled at West Virginia University. During his freshman year, Knotts enlisted in the United States Army and continued to hone his skills by entertaining his fellow troops. Knotts starred in a variety show known as “Stars and Gripes” alongside Danny “Hooch” Matador, a dummy that looked every bit as unsettling as one might expect. And while Knotts may have honed the craft that would eventually land him five Emmys, he grew to resent Danny.

“I was technically great at the art of ventriloquism,” said Knotts in a 1969 interview, “but didn’t like the dummy to get the laughs.” 

He hated it so much, in fact, that Knotts decided to dispose of his wooden sidekick in a shocking way.

He threw Danny overboard while their ship was sailing somewhere in the South Pacific. At least, that’s the story according to Knotts’ longtime friend and castmate Al Checco. In a 2006 interview with the Archive of American Television, Knotts tells an entirely different tale. “What happened was, they were letting me do my second banana stuff…I liked doing that better than the ventriloquism. But they kept saying, we need you to do the ventriloquist act. So, one night I left Danny on a beach when we left and reported him missing in action.”

Whether Danny was dumped in the ocean or left on a beach, the result is that Knotts traded ventriloquism for stand-up comedy. Later, Knotts returned to the United States, determined to make something of himself.

Knotts eventually landed the role of “Windy Wales” on a popular radio Western called “Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders.” In 1958, Don Knotts starred in the film version of the popular Broadway play No Time for Sergeants. It was then that he met the man who would forever alter the course of his destiny.

His name?

Andy Griffith.

Watch Next: Don Knotts Wrote THIS Classic ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ Scene

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