The Move To Television
Hovis moved to California in 1963 where he performed stand-up comedy and tried to break into television. In 1964, he was discovered by Andy Griffith's manager and was hired to appear on the hit TV series Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. where he played "Pvt. Larry Gotschalk". He also appeared on The Andy Griffith Show as Gilley Walker, the owner of a car that had several chronic noises that Goober attempted to repair eventually disassembling and reassembling in the Mayberry Courthouse.
In 1965, Hovis was cast as "Sgt. Andrew Carter" in the television show Hogan's Heroes. Hovis' character was part of a group of five Western Allied POWs; each character had a specialized task or talent (Sgt. Carter was the ordnance expert; in a typical episode of the series, it was Sgt. Carter who would be called upon to make an explosive device). In the series Carter was of Sioux ancestry; Larry Hovis was partly of Yakama Indian ancestry. In one episode of the comedy Alice, Hovis played an American Indian police detective who arrests a fake American Indian conman.
While Hovis was a regular on Hogan's Heroes, he also did other work in the entertainment industry, including writing the screenplay for the 1966 spy-spoof Out of Sight. He also appeared in and wrote comedy bits for Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.
Read more about this topic: Larry Hovis
Famous quotes containing the words the move, move and/or television:
“It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, from some pauses in the movement wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause or the effect of simple jollity.—In a word, I thought I beheld Religion mixing in the dance.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host...But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you.”
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 14:8,10.
“Addison DeWitt: Your next move, it seems to me, should be toward television.
Miss Caswell: Tell me this. Do they have auditions for television?
Addison DeWitt: That’s all television is, my dear. Nothing but auditions.”
—Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993)