HOLLYWOOD - Ron Howard, who played little Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show, has revealed a secret that no one ever has.
Ron said that the character of Aunt Bee, who was credited as being portrayed by actress Frances Bavier, was actually a male actor named Francisco Bavier.
Francisco appeared in 29 different guest starring roles in television as well as he made 7 movies, in which he portrayed a woman in each one.
Bavier's most memorable movie role was when he, at the young age of 27, portrayed Joan of Arc in the MGM epic, Hey, Is Something Burning? In that Humberto Higgalini film, Bavier was able to hide his Adam's apple by wearing an early 1400's turtle neck leather sweater.
Later he appeared in the Tarzan classic, Tarzan and Jane and Ethel. In that motion picture Bavier was able to hide his male package by wearing a loose-fitting buckskin loincloth and rhino horn earrings back when only women and pirates wore earrings.
Bavier had the gift of being able to effortlessly raise his male voice two complete octaves, which made him sound sort of like Fran Drescher, but without her grating New York accent.
Ron Howard was asked when he first found out the truth about Aunt Bee. He blushed and said that he first realized that his Aunt Bee was not really an aunt when he saw her standing in front of a bathroom urinal saying to herself, "Hey Gomer, I got your Goober right here."
In other news. Oprah Winfrey was asked for her opinion on the NBC late night peacockamamie fiasco. She shook her head and said that it has to be the silliest thing she has ever heard of. She said that she has gotten so fed up with hearing about it that she is seriously considering buying NBC and firing both Jay and Conan's ungrateful white boy a$$es.
