Ex-Whitefish resident: Actor Jim Nabors, 82, marries his longtime male partner
HONOLULU — Jim Nabors, the actor best known for playing Gomer Pyle on TV in the 1960s, has married his longtime male partner.
Hawaii News Now said Nabors, 82, and Stan Cadwallader, 64, traveled from their Honolulu home to Seattle, where they were married Jan. 15. Gay marriage became legal in Washington state last month.
Nabors owned a home in Whitefish on Big Mountain from the mid-1980s until 2000. He split his time between Whitefish and Honolulu for many years.
The couple met in 1975 when Cadwallader was a Honolulu firefighter.
“I’m 82 and he’s in his 60s and so we’ve been together for 38 years and I’m not ashamed of people knowing, it’s just that it was such a personal thing, I didn’t tell anybody,” Nabors said. “I’m very happy that I’ve had a partner of 38 years and I feel very blessed. And, what can I tell you, I’m just very happy.”
Nabors said he’s been open about his homosexuality to co-workers and friends but never acknowledged it to the media before. He doesn’t plan to get involved in the issue politically.
“I’m not a debater. And everybody has their own opinion about this and actually I’m not an activist, so I’ve never gotten involved in any of this,” Nabors told Hawaii News Now.
He became an instant success when he joined “The Andy Griffith Show” in spring 1963. The character of Gomer Pyle — the unworldly, lovable gas pumper who would exclaim “Gollllll-ly!” — proved so popular that in 1964 CBS starred him in “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.”
In the spinoff, which lasted five seasons, Gomer left his hometown of Mayberry to become a Marine recruit. His innocence confounded his sergeant, the irascible Frank Sutton.
Nabors also is well-known for his rich baritone voice. He has recorded 28 albums — five of which went gold — and numerous singles through the years.
In 1995 he performed at the Flathead Festival, an appearance he called “a celebration of my life.” Among the stars joining him on stage for that local concert, “Friends and Nabors,” were Mary Hart of “Entertainment Tonight,” Florence Henderson of “The Brady Bunch,” Karen Parks and Kay Starr.
Just 17 months before taking the stage at the Flathead Festival, Nabors was at the brink of death, saved only by a liver transplant from the ravages of Hepatitis B, a virus he apparently contracted while traveling in India.
Growing up in small-town Alabama, Nabors never lost his charming southern drawl. He told the Daily Inter Lake in a 1995 interview that he fit in perfectly with the laid-back, affable Montana lifestyle, but he eventually sold his Whitefish home and opted for a warmer climate in Hawaii.