“Kazan and wanted Andy to prove he could play a monster,” de Visé wrote. Griffith was dealing with an Oscar-winning director and had to convince Kazan he was the right man for the role of charming and narcissistic drifter Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, as Daniel de Visé noted in Andy and Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show. Now starring on Broadway in No Time for Sergeants, the actor had caught Kazan’s eye for the lead in the film. It was his “What It Was, Was Football” monologue, which he performed in clubs and eventually on The Ed Sullivan Show, that sold nearly a million copies on vinyl and made the country take notice of him. The Andy Griffith Show was three years away. When Andy Griffith found out in 1957 that director Elia Kazan was considering him for his latest film, A Face in the Crowd, the actor had only started to gain notice for his work as a stage performer. A scene from the 1957 film ‘A Face in the Crowd’ starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal | Warner Brothers/Getty Images How Griffith got cast in ‘A Face in the Crowd’ Yet despite the part the film played in advancing Griffith’s career, according to his Andy Griffith Show co-star Ron Howard, Griffith never wanted to do it again. Since its 1957 release, Griffith’s performance and the movie itself have gained considerable respect and critical acclaim. Andy Griffith’s film debut, A Face in the Crowd, was no box office hit, but it firmly put the actor on the map.
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