Although many original cast members reprised their roles, Frances Bavier had retired to Siler City, North Carolina in 1972, was in ill health, and declined to participate. In 1986, a made-for-television reunion movie called Return to Mayberry was broadcast on NBC. After two years as Sam's housekeeper, Aunt Bee leaves the Jones household for unspecified reasons to be replaced as housekeeper by Sam's cousin, Alice Cooper ( Alice Ghostley). The following year Andy and Helen move to Raleigh. Residing at the Jones farm, Aunt Bee feeds the livestock and gathers eggs. When Andy marries his longtime girlfriend Helen Crump on the spinoff Mayberry R.F.D., she opts to give the newlyweds their own space and becomes housekeeper for farmer Sam Jones (another widowed father) and his young son Mike. In spite of her sudden spirit of independence, Bee never quite makes a complete break and continues to rely on Andy to direct the course of her life and make the difficult decisions.Īunt Bee sees Opie grow from age 6 to 14. Andy and Opie are sometimes left at home to prepare their own meals. In the later episodes, Bee leaves the Taylor kitchen to open her own restaurant, to host a television cooking show, to run for office, to buy a car, and to take flying lessons. More drastic in the evolution of the character than her taste-shift in men and her wardrobe about-face is her liberation from her homemaker role in Andy's house. In the color episodes, she discards her frumpy wardrobe and steps into more stylish attire. In the show's early years, she is given to wearing comically dowdy house dresses, fruit- and flower-decorated hats, and ladylike white gloves for venturing outside the house. Bee's evolution in personality is reflected in her dress. In the color years, however, Bee's suitors are respectable gentlemen and include a retired congressman, a clergyman, and a distinguished professor. In the early years, she gives her heart to scalawags of all sorts and sometimes needs Andy's help in extricating herself from unpleasant romantic situations. Bee is a member of the town choir and sings in church.īee undergoes some changes during the final three color years of The Andy Griffith Show. In the same episode, Bee plays the piano and speaks of her baptism. In an episode in which a traveling salesman comes to Mayberry peddling patent medicine, Andy tells Barney that Aunt Bee is heavily against alcohol due to her brother's trouble with the bottle. She also has a rapscallion cousin called Bradford J. Bee has several one-episode flirtations in the early seasons with men who prove to be cads.Īunt Bee's other relatives sometimes come up in episodes she speaks of trimming her brother's hair when a girl and, in one episode, her sister Nora visits. Her other food is very well regarded, and Andy is especially fond of her pork chops and cornbread biscuits, while Opie's favorite dish is her butterscotch pecan pie. Andy and Barney refer to her pickles as "kerosene cucumbers" and her marmalade as smelling like "ammonia" – though they keep these opinions from her, so as not to hurt her feelings. While Aunt Bee is celebrated for her cuisine, she falls short as a pickler and marmalade maker. She frequently contributes meals to community or church events and brings picnic baskets of food to Mayberry's tiny jail for its lawmen and inmates. In the first episode, she serves a platter of fried chicken with all the trimmings, and thereafter her character is associated with wholesome, home-cooked meals. Bee is well known in Mayberry for her cooking skills. ![]() Andy explains to Opie that he was raised by Aunt Bee, and Bee later mentions, without elaboration, having raised other Taylors. Aunt Bee thereafter manages Andy's household and becomes Opie's surrogate mother and grandmother. ![]() In the premiere episode of The Andy Griffith Show, "The New Housekeeper," Aunt Bee returns to Mayberry after a five-year sojourn in Morgantown, West Virginia, when Andy's housekeeper Rose marries and leaves his house. Though she was the aunt of Sheriff Andy Taylor, virtually every character in Mayberry, even those in her age bracket such as Floyd and Emmett, called her "Aunt Bee."īlack-and-white seasons (1960–1965) Īunt Bee, full name Beatrice Taylor, is the paternal aunt of widower sheriff Andy Taylor and great-aunt to his son Opie Taylor. (1968–1971) when The Andy Griffith Show ended its run in 1968, and remained for two years. Played by Frances Bavier, the character migrated to the spinoff Mayberry R.F.D. Aunt Bee's first appearance, "The New Housekeeper" (1960).Īunt Bee is a fictional character from the 1960 American television sitcom The Andy Griffith Show.
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