Jack Dodson; Stage Actor, ‘Andy Griffith’ Regular

Jack Dodson, whose facile talents permitted him to portray both the comic intellectual snob on “The Andy Griffith Show” and the depressed and angry night clerk in Eugene O’Neill’s demanding “Hughie,” has died.

A daughter, Cristina, said Tuesday her father died Friday in a Los Angeles hospital of heart failure. He was 63.

Although best known as the stuffy egghead county clerk Howard Sprague on the Griffith show and a series offshoot, “Mayberry R.F.D.,” Dodson’s earliest credits were on the New York stage.

From the late 1950s through the mid-1970s, he was seen in such classics as “Our Town” and such contemporary offerings as “Six Characters in Search of an Author.” He and Jason Robards were in “Hughie” in New York’s Royale Theatre in 1964 and again in 1975 at the Westwood Playhouse.

In 1968 and 1972 he was seen at the Mark Taper Forum in “Chemin de Fer” and “Who’s Happy Now,” respectively.

His character on the Griffith show liked to try and impress his country neighbors with large words and curious logic that sometimes betrayed him. He often came down with foot-in-mouth disease.

But oddly, it was when Griffith saw him in the depressing talking jag that comprises “Hughie” that he was hired for the rural comedy series.

He began appearing on “Andy Griffith” in 1967, the year before the star left the show. He continued on “Mayberry R.F.D.” until it ended in 1971.

He made more than 150 guest appearances on other TV shows including “The Fugitive,” “Hawaii Five-O,” “Newhart,” “Barney Miller,” “Cagney & Lacey,” “St. Elsewhere,” “Matlock” and “L.A. Law.”

In films he was seen in “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid,” “Thunderbolt and Lightfoot” and “Something Wicked This Way Comes.”

His other survivors include his wife, Mary, and another daughter, Amy.