Jim Nabors, RIP

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Interesting that the Fox News story leads with “husband,” with relationship details below after professional info. The Hollywood Reporter mentions his “longtime partner” up front, but toward the end says that they’d been married.

6 Comments for “Jim Nabors, RIP”

  1. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Interesting that the Fox News story leads with “husband,” with relationship details below after professional info. The Hollywood Reporter mentions his “longtime partner” up front, but toward the end says that they’d been married.

    I wouldn’t put too much significance on the difference.

    Many mainstream media outlets (Fox included, it seems) mentioned Nabor’s married to Stan Cadwallader in the lead paragraphs:

    New York Times:

    Jim Nabors, a comic actor who found fame in the role of the amiable bumpkin Gomer Pyle in two hit television shows of the 1960s while pursuing a second career as a popular singer with a booming baritone voice, died on Thursday at his home in Honolulu. He was 87.

    His husband, Stan Cadwallader, confirmed the death. He said that Mr. Nabors’s health had been declining for a year and that his immune system had been suppressed since he underwent a liver transplant in 1994.

    Washington Post:

    Jim Nabors, a singer and comic actor who played the bumbling but good-natured hayseed Gomer Pyle on “The Andy Griffith Show” before starring as an unlikely Marine recruit in “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.,” one of the most popular sitcoms of the 1960s, died Nov. 30 at his home in Hono­lulu. He was 87.

    His death was confirmed to the Associated Press by his husband, Stan Cadwallader. The cause was not disclosed, but Mr. Nabors had a liver transplant in 1994 and heart surgery in 2012.

    CBS News:

    Jim Nabors, the shy Alabaman whose down-home comedy made him a TV star as Gomer Pyle and whose surprisingly operatic voice kept him a favorite in Las Vegas and other showplaces, died Thursday. He was 87.

    Nabors, who underwent a liver transplant in 1994 after contracting hepatitis B, died peacefully at his home in Hawaii after his health had declined for the past year, said his husband, Stan Cadwallader, who was by his side.

    UPI:

    Actor and singer Jim Nabors, who starred on The Andy Griffith Show and spinoff Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., has died at the age of 87. Nabors died Thursday in his home in Hawaii, Hawaii News Now reported.

    The performer’s longtime partner and husband Stan Cadwallader also confirmed his death to Indiana’s WTHR, who reported that he died peacefully after dealing with health problems the past couple of years.

    NBC News:

    Jim Nabors, the actor known for his role as the beloved “Gomer Pyle” on television comedies and for his booming operatic voice, has died. He was 87.

    Nabors, who starred as Gomer Pyle on “The Andy Griffith Show” in the early 1960s and went on to have his own spinoff show, died Thursday, husband Stan Cadwallader, who was by his side, told The Associated Press. Nabors died peacefully in his home in Hawaii, Cadwallader said.

    Los Angeles Times:

    Jim Nabors, the singer and actor who became a TV icon in the 1960s playing the lovably naïve Gomer Pyle on “The Andy Griffith Show” and the spinoff series “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.,” has died. He was 87.

    Nabors, who underwent a liver transplant after contracting hepatitis B in 1994, died Thursday at his home in Hawaii, his website announced. “Everybody knows he was a wonderful man. And that’s all we can say about him,” said Stan Cadwallader, who had been Nabors’ partner for 38 years before the couple married in 2013. “He’s going to be dearly missed.”

    Other mainstream media services and outlets (AP, Reuters, newspapers using those news services) mentioned the relationship later in the story.

    I suspect that the difference in handling stems mostly from the wire service (UPI, AP, Reuters) used by the particular outlet, rather than an editorial decision.

    Having said that, I liked the way that the UPI handled it, using the phrase “longtime partner and husband” to describe Cadwallader, and the way in which the LA Times described the relationship: “… Nabors’ partner for 38 years before the couple married in 2013”.

    To many older men (I’m definitely one of them) recognition that we lived in committed relationships for many years before being permitted to marry is important.

    Like Nabors and Cadwallader, my husband and I have been married only four years, and limiting mention of our relationship to our few years married to one another seems to me to suggest that our relationship doesn’t go much farther back than the marriage, and omitting the “longtime partner” part of the story does not tell the full story of our commitment or our relationship. We waited for the chance to marry, we yearned for it, and we never thought we’d live to see the day.

    I think of friends now departed who never got the chance to marry. I remember, in particular, Mary and Eugenia, who were together 64 years before Mary died, Jane and Mugs, who were together for over 40 years when Jane died, and John and Stanley, who were together almost 50 years when John died. I wish that they had lived long enough to marry.

    I don’t think, somehow, that they’d be quite so quick to carp.

    As an aside, I am fascinated that WorldNetDaily.com (which almost always uses scare quotes when within five miles of a same-sex marriage) published a short squib linking to the Hollywood Reporter article.

  2. posted by Jorge on

    I’ve begun to get the impression lately that the word “husband”, and sometimes the word “wife”, is a euphemism for being gay.

    It’s not intentional of course, and for all I know it’s even more obscure language I’m really picking up on. It’s the result of the media telling the same stories about gay families as they do about straights (a very recent thing), without the lazy language shortcuts and biases that have built up for decades about straight families.

  3. posted by Kosh III on

    I agree with Tom’s comment:
    “, my husband and I have been married only four years, and limiting mention of our relationship to our few years married to one another seems to me to suggest that our relationship doesn’t go much farther back than the marriage, and omitting the “longtime partner” part of the story does not tell the full story of our commitment or our relationship.”

    Same here, legal since 13 together since 79.

  4. posted by David Bauer on

    He was a very talented man.

  5. posted by David Bauer on

    I think that he was semi-outed once during his career, although it may have been a “joke”. Otherwise, it (his sucessful career) seems to have been a, ” don’t ask, don’t tell” situation.

    He was a successful actor – got his own spinoff series – and was successful in country music. He did special guest performances at NASCAR.

    People generally assumed that he was straight, he didn’t correct them and he avoided doing anything to hurt his public persona.

  6. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    He was a successful actor – got his own spinoff series – and was successful in country music. He did special guest performances at NASCAR.

    Nabors’ style was a bit operatic for my taste, whether singing country, gospel or anything else.

    My lasting memory of him — and it is a good memory — is of all the years that he sang “Back Home Again in Indiana” at the Indianapolis 500.

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