Andy Griffith, an actor whose folksy Southern manner charmed audiences for more than 50 years on Broadway, in movies, on albums and especially on television - most notably as the small-town sheriff on the long-running situation comedy that bore his name - died on Tuesday at his home on Roanoke Island in North Carolina. Mr. Griffith was already a star - on Broadway in "No Time for Sergeants" and in Hollywood in Elia Kazan's film "A Face in the Crowd" - when "The Andy Griffith Show" made its debut in the fall of 1960. But his fame was never as great as it was in the 1960s, when he starred for eight years as Andy Taylor, the sagacious sheriff of the make-believe town of Mayberry, N.C. Every week he rode herd on a collection of eccentrics, among them his high-strung deputy, Barney Fife, and the simple-minded gas station attendant Gomer Pyle. Meanwhile, as a widower, Andy raised a young son, Opie, and often went fishing with him. The show imagined a reassuring world of fishin" holes, ice cream socials and rock-hard family values during a decade that grew progressively tumultuous. Its vision of rural simplicity (captured in its memorable theme song, whistled over the opening credits) was part of a TV trend that began with "The Real McCoys" on ABC in 1957 and later included "The Beverly Hillbillies," "Petticoat Junction," "Green Acres" and "Hee Haw." But by the late 1960s, the younger viewers networks prized were spurning corn pone, and Mr. Griffith had decided to leave after the 1966-67 season to make movies. But Mr. Griffith had decided to move on, and so had the times. "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In," with its one-liners about drugs and Vietnam, and "The Mod Squad," about an integrated trio of undercover officers, were grabbing a new audience. But the characters in "The Andy Griffith Show" - Barney (Don Knotts), Gomer (Jim Nabors), Opie (Ron Howard, who went on to fame as a movie director), Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier) and the rest, including Gomer's cousin Goober Pyle (George Lindsey, who died in May) - have remained tantalizingly real to their fans, who continue to watch reruns on cable TV and online. Andy Griffith was more complex than Andy Taylor, although the show was based on his hometown, Mount Airy, N.C. Before he fetched up in Mayberry, he was known for bringing authenticity to dark roles, beginning with the lead in "A Face in the Crowd," in 1957, the story of a rough-hewn television personality who, in the clutches of his city-slicker handlers, becomes something of a megalomaniac. In 1983, in "Murder in Coweta County," he played a chillingly wicked man who remains stone cold even as he is strapped into the electric chair. Sheriff Taylor aside, Mr. Griffith was no happy rustic; he enjoyed life in Hollywood and knew his way around a wine list. His career was tightly controlled by a personal manager, Richard O. Linke. "If there is ever a question about something, I will do what he wants me to do," Mr. Griffith told The New York Times Magazine in 1970. Far from the gregarious Andy Taylor, Mr. Griffith was a loner and a worrier. He once hit a door in anger, and for two episodes of "The Andy Griffith Show" he had a bandaged hand (explained on the show as an injury Andy received while apprehending criminals). But the show's 35 million viewers would have been reassured to learn that even at the peak of his popularity, Mr. Griffith drove a Ford station wagon and bought his suits off the rack. He said his favorite honor was having a stretch of a North Carolina highway named after him in 2002. Correction: July 9, 2012 Because of an editing error, an obituary on Wednesday about the actor Andy Griffith misidentified the television anthology series on which he starred in one episode, an adaptation of the novel "No Time for Sergeants," in 1955, before playing the same role in the stage and film versions of the same story. The show was "The United States Steel Hour," not "Playhouse 90." And also because of an editing error, the obituary referred incorrectly to Mr. Griffith's son, Andy Jr. (who died in 1996), and his daughter, Dixie Griffith. They were the children of his first marriage, not his third.