Dennis Rush, ‘Andy Griffith Show’ Child Actor, Dies at 74

Dennis Rush, the freckle-faced child actor who charmed audiences as Howie Prewitt — one of Opie Taylor’s closest pals — on The Andy Griffith Show, has died. He was 74. Rush died on May 9, on the way to the hospital, after being diagnosed with leukemia just weeks earlier. He lived in the San Diego area.

His friend and former co-star Keith Thibodeaux — best known as Little Ricky on I Love Lucy, and who played Johnny Paul Jason alongside Rush on The Andy Griffith Show — broke the news on Facebook, sharing a production still from the show.

“I just got word that my old buddy Dennis Rush, a fine actor and a great friend passed away,” Thibodeaux wrote. “What a shock. He was with us as one of Opie’s buddies. He’s the one sitting down. I will miss him at the Andy Griffith festivals as we had so many stories to tell. I’m just glad that I was able to pray with him last month at one of the festivals when he found out that he was diagnosed with leukemia. Mayberry has lost a great citizen and a great friend!”

Thibodeaux starred in 13 episodes of The Andy Griffith Show between 1962 and 1966. Rush appeared in eight over three seasons from 1963 to 1965 — and by his own account, he treasured every minute of it. “I got to be in eight episodes over about a 2½-year period,” he said in 2022. “It was just the best of the best.”

One of his fondest memories from the set came during the 1964 episode “Barney’s Physical,” when he blanked on his line during rehearsal and ad-libbed something about Don Knotts’ character “hanging himself in the closet.” The improvised line made it into the final cut.

How James Cagney Launched a Career Over Lunch

Dennis Eugene Rush was born in Philadelphia on June 10, 1951. When he was just a year old, his father Jack moved the family to Los Angeles and took a job as a film archivist at Universal Studios. Being good meant getting to visit dad at the lot for lunch — and it was at that lunch counter where everything changed.

As Rush told the story at last year’s Mayberry-I Love Lucy Festival in Granville, Tennessee: a man tapped his father on the shoulder and said he was looking for a little boy to play his son in a movie. That man was James Cagney.

When Rush’s father explained that Dennis wasn’t an actor and needed to be in school, Cagney’s response was simple: “Trust me.”

His screen test involved riding a tricycle around a Christmas tree. He spent the next six months on the film.

The result was Man of a Thousand Faces (1957), in which Rush played Creighton Chaney at age 4 — the son of silent film legend Lon Chaney, portrayed by Cagney. Dorothy Malone played his mother, Jim Backus his uncle. One of the film’s most emotionally demanding scenes required young Dennis to cry, and Cagney found a way to get there. He walked Rush around the soundstage, describing Christmas mornings and family warmth — then told him that the little boy in the story would never have any of that again.

“He kept that up for a walk around the soundstage and had me in tears,” Rush recalled in a 1989 interview with the Los Angeles Times. “We went right in and did the scene in five minutes. Whenever I had to cry from then on, I remembered that.”

He and Cagney exchanged Christmas cards every year until the Oscar winner’s death in March 1986.

A Career Full of Classic TV — and a Life Well Lived

After Man of a Thousand Faces, Rush became a fixture in classic television throughout the late ’50s and ’60s. His credits included seven episodes of Wagon Train — one directed by John Ford — three episodes of Laramie, and appearances on Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, The Lucy Show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, My Favorite Martian, My Living Doll and The Magical World of Disney. His final acting credit was Disney’s Follow Me, Boys! in 1966.

“Every month or so you would do a number of things and then six months would go by and you wouldn’t do anything,” he once said of the life of a working child actor. “Then you’d get a call and go on an interview and you might be with 20 kids or you might be with 200 kids.”

When he aged out of child roles, Rush joined the U.S. Marines. When his service ended, he discovered his parents had spent the money he’d earned as an actor — at times as much as $500 a week. He went on to graduate from Notre Dame High School and then San Diego State in 1977, and built a career in the hotel and restaurant business.

But Mayberry never really let him go. Rush became a beloved presence at the annual Mayberry Days convention in Mount Airy, North Carolina — the real-life inspiration for the show’s fictional town — and at the Mayberry-I Love Lucy Festival in Tennessee. He was at that festival just last month, where Thibodeaux prayed with him after he shared his leukemia diagnosis.

The Andy Griffith Museum paid tribute to Rush on Facebook Thursday, writing: “Dennis was an absolute joy to be around and one of the sweetest men you could ever meet. It was always a pleasure to welcome him to Mayberry Days, where he shared smiles, stories, hugs and kindness with fans from all over the world.”

Lucie Arnaz Luckingbill, daughter of I Love Lucy star Lucille Ball, commented on Thibodeaux’s post: “Sorry, Keith. Those decades long friendships are the best. He will save a nice place for you where he’s going, I’m sure.” Thibodeaux replied simply: “Yes Lucie!”

Rush is survived by his siblings Sally, Monica, Patrick and Megan. Another brother, Jack, died in February.

He was, by every account, exactly the kind of person Mayberry was always supposed to represent.