Andy Griffith: Secret Family Shame Of Beloved Star

Andy Griffith took his secret heartbreak to the grave — the sitcom legend never reconciled with his only son, who died before the estranged pair could make peace!

The horrible irony of the TV legend’s life was despite his role as one of the most revered dads in television history, he couldn’t save his beloved son, who was hell-bent on self-destruction! “Andy and his son, Sam, had a falling out over Sam’s drug use,” a Hollywood insider tells The National ENQUIRER. “Andy just couldn’t understand Sam as time went along, and his son got in and out of trouble — and Andy finally just threw up his hands."

“Sam always felt like a black sheep. He felt like Andy didn’t love him because he wasn’t his TV son "Opie", the lovable character played by Ron Howard on ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ in the 1960s," added the insider. They finally, and sadly, reached an impasse in the 1990s — and then Sam died tragically of an overdose before Andy could patch things up. Sam — adopted by Andy and his first wife, Barbara, in 1957 and named Andy Samuel Griffith Jr. — admitted that he was “a wild kid. I caused my dad a lot of heartaches. My dad was a good father, but for a while I was out of control.”  Sam went off the rails as a teenager and was busted for drugs, battery, soliciting prostitutes and theft — and was jailed in 1992 for beating his pregnant wife, Renee. He says his drug habit became so bad, “I’d wake up in the morning wanting coke.”

Andy — who also adopted a daughter, Dixie — had tried to help Sam, twice shelling out at least $15,000 to send him to rehab. But after Sam’s attack on Renee, Andy cut him off, telling him, “You’re an embarrassment. You’re on your own now.” After serving 60 days in jail for abusing his wife, Sam continued to tumble into trouble. He was busted for driving under the influence, drug possession, shoplifting, assault with a deadly weapon and negligently firing a gun. “Toward the end, he was full of remorse” over his life and crimes, says his pal Suzi Manners.

“Sam admitted that he had pushed his dad way past the point of no return.”His sister, Dixie, however, had a far more functional relationship with their father. “So many people wanted to be a part of him, but he was just my dad,” she says, adding that she has happy memories from her childhood with her parents and brother, especially summers in North Carolina, where Andy had a home on Roanoke Sound. “He’d make us wear one of his old-timey caps in the rumble seat of his antique car,” she says. Dixie insists that their father took excellent care of the family. “I didn’t grow up in the spotlight,” she says. “My dad was fiercely protective of us.” Yet Suzi believes, “In Sam’s eyes it was like Andy was ashamed of his son. He cushioned the pain with substance abuse.”

Shortly before he died on Jan. 17, 1996, Sam intended to reach out to Andy one last time. He wrote him a letter saying, “Please, Dad, just give it one more chance. I’m your son. I want to be your friend.” But the letter went unsent, and Sam was found slumped over a desk at his Hollywood home. He was dead at 38. Andy did not attend the funeral.“Any last chance of reconciliation ended when Sam suddenly died,” says a friend. The “Matlock” star passed years later, on July 3, 2012, at the age of 86 — with the sorrow of their broken relationship still weighing down his heart.