Jim Nabors Movies  Jim Nabors, he of the vacuous expression and
the dumbstruck expletives "Gawwwleee" and "Shazzayam," graduated
from the University of Alabama with a degree in business
administration. Nabors' first TV job was as an apprentice film
cutter; shortly afterward, he launched a fitfully successful
career as a cabaret singer. In 1963, he was hired to play the
one-shot role of gas station attendant Gomer Pyle on the top-
rated The Andy Griffith Show. Essentially a build-up to a
punchline (Griffith explained to a nonplused stranger that the
goofy Gomer planned to become a brain surgeon), Nabor's hayseed
character proved so popular that he became a regular on the
series. In 1964, with Griffith's manager Richard O. Linke
calling the shots, Nabors was spun off into his own weekly
sitcom, Gomer Pyle USMC, which ran for five successful seasons.
Televiewers got their first inkling that there was more to
Nabors than Gomer when, on a 1964 Danny Kaye Show, he revealed
his rich, well-modulated baritone singing v