Don Knotts, best known for his role as Deputy Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, died on Feb. 24, 2006 at the age of 81. He died from pulmonary and respiratory complications as a result of lung cancer at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. His family was by his side, including daughter Karen Knotts who, at one point, excused herself from the hospital room because she was laughing so hard.
Don Knotts was cracking jokes until the very end — just ask his daughter
“Here’s the thing about my dad,” Karen told Closer Weekly in 2018. “He had this funniness that was just completely, insanely natural. When he was dying, he was making us laugh in hysterics.”
“He was literally dying, but he did something or said something that caused my stepmother and me to go into fits of laughter, which is why I ran out,” she continued. “I thought to myself, ‘I don’t want to be standing there in front of this man, my dearly beloved father, who’s dying, and laughing.’”
However, looking back, Karen wishes she would have stayed in the room.
“I was telling this story to Howard Storm, who’s a director, and he said, ‘You should have stayed and laughed out loud,’” she said. “‘That’s what comedians live for!’ He was right; I should have just stood there and blasted out laughing.”
Don Knotts never lost his sense of humor despite his difficult childhood that haunted him
Don’s mother had him when she was 40. His father had schizophrenia and alcoholism, and would reportedly hold a knife to Don’s neck and threaten him.
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“My dad was very burdened down by all these problems,” said Karen. “He had problems with his father and an older brother who tormented him because they were alcoholics.”
Don went to a lot of therapy. He was affected by his childhood for his entire life.
“He was mercurial,” said Karen of her father. “He had a lot of different kinds of moods. He fought a lot of depression and I helped him, or thought I did, because I could see how he had this endless loop of thought that would always lead to a downward spiral. I would try to break through that and was like Pollyanna, pointing out the positives.”
Though Karen tried to cheer her dad up (an enormous burden for any child), he eventually found a psychiatrist that helped to heal him quite a bit.
“Of course, I couldn’t do much,” she said. “I was a kid. He got a great psychiatrist named Duke Renniker. Duke was able to help him a lot. By the end, he had overcome everything that was down in his life. I felt really, really proud of him for all the work that he put into being a happy person. And the truth is, he loved people.”
And people loved him. Don Knotts delighted audiences for half a century starring in seven TV shows and over 25 films. He won five Emmy Awards for his work on The Andy Griffith Show alone, doing what he did best — making people laugh.
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