Lately it seems there's been a little bit of confusion about two different
nurses in Mayberry. I'll see if I can clear this up.
Mary Simpson was the nurse who had trouble convincing Rafe Hollister to take
his tetanus shot. She was played by Julia Adams (a.k.a. Julie Adams) in the
episode The County Nurse. She is still working today; in fact I checked the
IMDb just now and learned that she appeared in a couple of episodes of my other
favorite show, LOST. I would get out my LOST discs and look for her, but alas,
the tornado took them (I saved most of my TAGS DVDs, but they all got wet and
may not play anymore. They're packed away somewhere). I also used to have a
framed TV Guide hanging on the wall (tornado took that too); it had an article
about Julia's role on TAGS, and the article implied that she was going to
become a permanent character on The Andy Griffith Show. I guess it didn't work
out for some reason or other.
Sue Ane Langdon (note correct spelling of her middle name, ANE not ANN) played
a nurse named Mary in a different TAGS episode, Three's a Crowd. This is the
one where Andy tries to spend some time alone with Mary, but Barney keeps
butting in. Her character is called only Mary, no last name is given in the
episode. I must conclude that she is not supposed to be Mary Simpson, but
rather a different character who just happens to be a nurse named Mary. But
without a script, we don't know for certain. I don't suppose anybody has a copy
of the script for this episode to check? If the printed script had the name as
Mary Simpson, we'd have a definitive answer. I asked Sue Ane once, but she
couldn't remember. BTW she seems to have retired from acting about 20 years ago.
Anyway, for those keeping track of one-shot actors, both Julia Adams and Sue
Ane Langdon each appeared in only one TAGS episode. And my favorite character
to appear in only one episode would probably be Sergeant Carter, brilliantly
portrayed by Frank Sutton, or perhaps Uncle Ollie, played by James Westerfield.
James later played a sheriff in an episode of Mayberry RFD.
Paul Mulik
___
WBMUTBB mailing list
WBMUTBB@wbmutbb.com
http://www.mayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/
