Andy Griffith Pinned a Director ‘Against the Wall’ to Secure a 1957 Film Role, According to His “Matlock” Costar

Victoria EdelMon, October 5, 2026 at 3:13 PM UTC

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Andy Griffith in 1959Credit: CBS via Getty -

Matlock star Linda Purl remembered Andy Griffith telling her about how he landed his role in 1957’s A Face in the Crowd

Griffith said he pinned director Elia Kazan against a wall as he explained why he wanted the part

Purl said that she thinks The Andy Griffith Show and Matlock showed “only a fraction” of what Griffith was able to do as an actor

Andy Griffith might be best known for playing morally upstanding characters, but he went a little dark to land a role in 1957’s A Face in the Crowd.

Linda Purl, who starred with Griffith on Matlock as his daughter, opened up about a story the actor told her on the Sept. 28 episode of the Still Here Hollywood podcast with Steve Kmetko. Purl had previously appeared on Happy Days, as the girlfriend of Ron Howard‘s Richie Cunningham. Howard also famously played Griffith’s son Opie on The Andy Griffith Show.

“Now I’m Opie’s father’s daughter. Does that mean I was dating my brother?” Purl, 71, joked, calling it “all horribly incestuous.”

Purl said it was thrilling to work with Griffith, who died in 2012 at 86. She remembered that she first met her TV father at a lunch arranged by a producer.

“I don’t think I managed to eat anything. It was just holding my stomach with laughter,” she remembered. “I mean an archetypal raconteur.” She called him funny and “brilliant.” She expected something close to his persona from The Andy Griffith Show, which aired from 1960 to 1968.

Andy Griffith (left) and Linda Purl in ‘Matlock’Credit: NBC/Courtesy Everett Collection

“I think he was a shape shifter,” she said. “He had a finger on the pulse of humanity at a profound level.” She said she wished Griffith had gotten to play Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman, because “we saw a fraction of what he was capable of doing as an actor.”

Kmetko pointed out that once Griffith did go dark, with his performance in 1957’s A Face in the Crowd. Directed by Elia Kazan, it was Griffith’s film debut and saw him playing a drifter, Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, who ends up on the radio and ultimately rises to fame, influence and power on national television.

Purl said that the story Griffith told during their lunch was actually about how he landed that leading role. At the time, he was in No Time for Sergeants on Broadway and read the script for the film. “He thought, ‘That’s my role. That’s for me,’ ” she remembered.

But Kazan, who died in 2003 at the age of 94, wasn’t interested in even considering casting him because his background was in comedy.

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“He found out Kazan’s office and he went and he sat in the foyer with the secretary, just waiting, day after day or whenever he could,” Purl said. The secretary never admitted him.

But one day, Kazan was in the office, and Griffith “barged in.”

Andy Griffith (left) and Patricia Neal in ‘A Face in the Crowd’Credit: John Springer Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty

“Kazan was sort of impressed with the chutzpah, this handsome young hick to break into his office and to make his case why he should be,” Purl said. But she remembers Griffith telling her that while he was “charmed,” he wasn’t convincing Kazan to cast him.

“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 he then I got the part,” Purl said.

“I think Andy saw himself plainly. He knew he was a brilliant and complex person. And wasn’t he wonderful in that film? Wasn’t he something?” Purl said.

A Face in the Crowd‘s reception was mixed upon release, but the movie is now remembered as one of Griffith’s best screen performances.

On Matlock, Griffith played defense attorney Ben Matlock. Purl ultimately only spent one season on the show as Ben’s daughter Charlene. She was a partner in her father’s law firm before moving to Philadelphia. The series ran from 1986 to 1992.

Other roles for Purl have included The Office (where she played the mother of Jenna Fischer’s Pam Beesly), Desperate Housewives, Homeland and True Blood. Currently, she plays a recurring role on the CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful.

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