Jack Dodson

Jack Dodson is a character actor who built a 30-year career on solid supporting performances. He started his acting career on Broadway where, in 1964, in a production of "Hughie," Andy Griffith noticed him and signed him immediately for the the family comedy "The Andy Griffith Show." There Dodson settled in to what was to become his most famous role, that of the unassuming mama's boy, Howard Sprague, which he portrayed on 38 episodes of the show from 1966 until 1968. He continued the character on the spinoff comedy, "Mayberry R.F.D.," for three years after that. Dodson's career was not limited to this early television success, however. He branched out into feature films, working with prominent director Sam Peckinpah in both the crime thriller "The Getaway" and the western "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid." He also had a nice turn in Disney's heralded adaptation of Ray Bradbury's fantasy "Something Wicked This Way Comes." But most of his work came on the small screen, guest-appearing on televison hits while landing recurring work as a senator in the comedy "All's Fair" and a monsignor in the religious send-up "In the Beginning." Dodson was Ralph Malph's father on the nostalgia comedy "Happy Days"and a judge for seven episodes of the soap opera "St. Elsewhere," and he reprised his role as Howard Sprague in 1986 for "Return to Mayberry" and in 1990 for the comedy series "It's Garry Shandling's Show." He died of heart failure at the age of 63.