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"...And here's the surprise..some of my new homemade pickles!"
―Aunt Bee[src]
Aunt Bee Taylor
Bee
Profile
Full Name Beatrice Taylor
Occupation Housekeeper
First Episode The New Housekeeper
Last Episode The Mynah Bird (Mayberry R.F.D.)
Spin-off Appearances Mayberry R.F.D., Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C.
Relationships
Family Andy Taylor (nephew),

Opie Taylor (great-nephew),
Nora (sister)
Bradford J. Taylor (cousin),
Ollie (brother-in-law),
Roger & Bruce (nephews)
Edgar (cousin)
Martha (niece)
Seth Taylor (great-great-grandfather)
Barney Fife (nephew)

Spouse N/A
Romances Hubert St. John, Roger Hanover, John Canfield
Children N/A
Portrayed by Frances Bavier

Beatrice Taylor, better known as Aunt Bee, is the paternal aunt of widower Sheriff Andy Taylor and great-aunt to his son Opie Taylor. She was in every season of The Andy Griffith Show and was portrayed by Frances Bavier.

History[]

In the premiere episode of The Andy Griffith Show, "The New Housekeeper,” Aunt Bee returns to Mayberry after a five-year sojourn in Morgantown, West Virginia when Andy's housekeeper Rose marries and leaves Mayberry. Aunt Bee thereafter manages the Taylor House and becomes Opie's surrogate mother and grandmother.

Clara Edwards 04

Aunt Bee and friends are baking in her kitchen

Andy explains to Opie that he was raised by Aunt Bee and Bee later mentions, without elaboration, having raised others in the Taylor family. Bee is well-known in Mayberry for her cooking skills, a hobby she very much enjoys. In the first episode, she serves a platter of fried chicken with all the trimmings, and thereafter her character is associated with wholesome, home-cooked meals. She frequently contributes meals to community or church events and brings picnic baskets of food to Mayberry's tiny jail for Andy and Barney and even its inmates. While Aunt Bee is celebrated for her cuisine, she falls short as a pickler.[1] Andy and Barney refer to her pickles as "kerosene cucumbers." Andy is fond of her pork chops and cornbread biscuits, while Opie's favorite dish is her Butterscotch Pecan Pie.

Colored Episodes[]

Bee undergoes some changes during the final three color years of The Andy Griffith Show. In the early years, she gives her heart to scalawags of all sorts and sometimes needs Andy's help in extricating herself from unpleasant romantic situations. Through-out the Andy Griffith Show, Aunt Bee has been strong-willed when it comes to standing up for people's rights.

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Aunt Bee in politics

She is pro-women's equal rights and is always standing up for the underdog. Although she is older in age, Aunt Bee has always stood her ground and for what she believed in. In the color years, Bee's suitors are respectable gentlemen and include a retired congressman, a clergyman, and a distinguished professor; quite the contrast from the black and white episodes and her swindling suitors. Bee's evolution in personality is reflected in her dress. In the show's early years, she is given to wearing comically dowdy house dresses, fruit and flower-decorated hats, and ladylike white gloves for venturing outside the house. In the color episodes, she discards her frumpy wardrobe and steps into more stylish attire. In one episode, she wore a blonde wig causing Andy much anxiety and the town much distress.

More drastic in the evolution of the character than her taste-shift in men and her wardrobe about-face is her liberation from her homemaker role in Andy's house. In the later episodes, Bee leaves the Taylor kitchen to open her own restaurant, to host a television cooking show, to run for office, to buy a car, and to take flying lessons. Andy and Opie are sometimes left at home to prepare their own meals. When Aunt Bee comes back and cooks for them again, Opie is glad she's coming back because he does not like Andy's food at all. In spite of her sudden spirit of independence, Bee never quite makes a complete break and continues to rely on Andy to direct the course of her life and make difficult decisions.

Aunt Bee sees Opie grow from age 6 to 14. When Andy marries his longtime girlfriend Helen Crump on the spinoff Mayberry R.F.D.[2], she opts to give the newlyweds their own space and becomes housekeeper for farmer Sam Jones (another widowed father) and his young son Mike. Residing at the Jones' farm, Aunt Bee feeds the livestock and gathers eggs. The following year Andy and Helen move to Raleigh, North Carolina.


In 1986, a made-for-television reunion movie called Return to Mayberry was broadcast on NBC. Although many original cast members reprise their roles, Frances Bavier had since retired to Siler City, North Carolina. She was in ill health and declined to participate in the movie. In the television movie, Andy Taylor is seen reverentially visiting Aunt Bee's grave, where another actress does the voice-over work for Frances.

Relationships[]

Family[]

FamilyVisit

Nora and Ollie visit

Aunt Bee's other relatives sometimes come up in episodes; she speaks of trimming her brother's hair when a girl and, in one episode, her sister Nora visits. She also has a rapscallion cousin called Bradford J. Taylor who features in a color episode. Bee is a teetotaler. In an episode in which a traveling salesman comes to Mayberry peddling patent medicine, Andy tells Barney that Aunt Bee is heavily against alcohol due to her brother's trouble with the bottle. (It is unclear whether this brother in meant to be Andy's father or one of Andy's uncles.) In the same episode, Bee plays the piano and speaks of her baptism. Bee is a member of the town choir and sings in church.

Friends[]

Bee and Clara[]

Clara and Aunt Bee 101

Aunt Bee and Clara in her kitchen

Aunt Bee's closest friend in Mayberry is widow Clara Edwards (Hope Summers). Although Clara is a well-meaning woman, she often proves irksome when positioning herself as Bee's rival for the attentions of the single, older gentlemen passing through Mayberry. She vies with Bee in cooking contests and flower shows and replaces her in the town pageant when Bee realizes she has no talent for theatricals. Clara and Bee attended school together as girls. They compose an anthem celebrating the good life in Mayberry and, in one episode, vacation in Mexico with their friend Myrtle. Clara is sometimes a petty and jealous woman, often ruining Bee's pleasure in one small thing or another with a dismissive sniff or an abrupt and cutting comment.

Romances[]

Beginning with the second season, Aunt Bee had at least one flirtation (rarely, if ever, amounting to a true romance) per season. These flirtations added significant depth and interest to her character. In the black-and-white seasons, Bee threatened to give her heart to cads of all sorts and sometimes needed Andy's help in extricating herself from unpleasant situations. Andy was pretty smart and quick to figure out these men were nothing but charlatans but saved Aunt Bee from having her feelings hurt. In the color years, however, Bee gained wisdom through experience. She paired herself with respectable gentlemen and managed her affairs without significant assistance from Andy. Of course, there was never any implication of physical involvement. In spite of Aunt Bee's propensity for affairs of the heart and her active pursuit of elderly bachelors, she was only engaged once—to a cruise-ship captain (played by Will Geer for two episodes) during season one of Mayberry RFD.

BriefEncounter

Henry Wheeler

  • Henry Wheeler, an itinerant handyman, uses Bee's romantic vulnerability to cadge himself free meals and shelter at the Taylors' (Second season: "Aunt Bee's Brief Encounter").
    BellsforBee

    Fred Goss

  • Fred Goss, a chain-smoking dry cleaner, dates Bee when she believes her stay-at-home lifestyle inhibits Andy from pursuing his chances for dating and marrying (Second season: "Wedding Bells for Aunt Bee").
    MedMan23

    Colonel Harvey

  • Colonel Harvey, a traveling medicine man, sells Bee two bottles of his Indian elixir. Bee becomes tipsy on the brew and Colonel Harvey lands in jail (Third season: "Aunt Bee's Medicine Man").
    Briscoe1

    Briscoe Darling

  • Briscoe Darling, a mountain man, becomes smitten with Aunt Bee and carries her off to his cabin in the hills. Andy rescues Bee but not before she makes Briscoe's life miserable (Fourth season: "Briscoe Declares for Aunt Bee").
    BeeRo2

    Roger Hanover

  • Roger Hanover is an old, out-of-town friend of Aunt Bees. He visits Mayberry and loiters at the Taylor house, knowing Andy distrusts him, finally threatening he'll propose marriage to Bee unless Andy pays him to leave (Fifth season: "Aunt Bee's Romance"). Andy calls his bluff and tells Roger that Aunt Bee is in the Kitchen (obviously referring that he can go in and propose to her). Shortly thereafter, Aunt Bee and Roger emerge and Aunt Bee informs Andy that Roger is leaving. Roger inquires to Andy if he had ever played poker----Andy responds Yes he had and he was at one time pretty good at it. After Roger leaves, Andy asks Aunt Bee if she was upset about Roger leaving. She said that she was not, that “a little bit of Roger went a long way” (referring to the many jokes that he told and pulled on others). She said that when Roger had come into the kitchen to tell her he was leaving, she had been afraid that he was going to ask her to marry him. Aunt Bee said that she would be glad to get her house back into order.
    Hendricks invisible beau 2

    Mr. Hendricks

  • Orville Hendricks is a butter-and-egg seller whom Bee pretends to be dating when goaded by Clara, she decides Andy needs space to pursue his romance with Helen (Fifth season: "Aunt Bee's Invisible Beau").
    AuntBeeTheSwinger

    John Canfield

  • John Canfield, a retired Congressman, dates Aunt Bee until the two become exhausted with their whirlwind activities (Sixth season: "Aunt Bee, the Swinger").
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    Rev. Leighton

  • Reverend Leighton, a visiting pastor, is impressed with Bee and considers accepting a parish near Mayberry. Bee believes he will think less of her when he learns she wears a wig (Seventh season: "Aunt Bee's Crowning Glory").
  • Hubert St. John is a visiting lecturer who becomes smitten with Aunt Bee because she resembles his deceased wife (Eighth season: "Aunt Bee and the Lecturer").


Appearances[]

The Andy Griffith Show[]

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Season 4

Season 5

Season 6

Season 7

Season 8

Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C.[]

Season 4

Mayberry R.F.D.[]

Season 1

Season 2

Gallery[]

Gallery of Aunt Bee

References

  1. The Pickle Story
  2. Andy_and_Helen_Get_Married
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