Tina Louise did the same thing. It was common in early television, but there were exceptions. Natalie Schafer did the Gilligan pilot to get a free trip to Hawaii. She was the oldest of the cast and didn’t really expect, or even care if the series was picked up. On the Munsters they were worried that Yvonne De Carlo would be a diva because she was a legitimate movie star, but instead she was loved by the cast and crew, never putting on airs.
Perhaps “breathed his last” is a decorous way of saying that he died while literally coughing out a bloody, tubercular lung, but I find the phrasing tacky. Maybe the personality defect ran in the family and the obituary writer was a co-worker that Mr Bavier had pissed off.
And because the disease is tuberculosis and not tuberculous, I just made my first Wikipedia correction!
I don’t understand why everyone believes that the character, on the “Andy Griffith Show” , called Aunt Bea thinks and strongly believe it should be spelled Bee. Her character’s first name was Beatrice and when Francis Bavier signed publicity photos she even spelled her character’s name Bea. Does anyone know why and when it may have been changed? Otherwise I am left to believe that the spelling Bee is wrong in various articles and even Francis’ grave stone.
no! no!
and…NO
my god, people, have you forgotten the fried chicken and home made pie?
and when she got tipsy, played the piano and sang “to to Tutsie, goodbye” or whatever that song was.
LOVE Aunt Bea
In Star Trek: The REAL Story, Herb Solow had little but praise for her as head of Desilu in the '60s. She never interfered with any of his projects (though her new husband Gary Morton was a real PITA) and even pitched in on the set of the second ***Trek ***pilot when they fell behind schedule.
Herb dropped off a copy of the script for the first pilot, telling Lucy she could suggest changes if she wanted to. He went back to her office weeks later and the script was still there where he put it, unread.
I always called her “Isn’t Bee”.
Bob Justman and other senior ST production people also later praised Lucy for being encouraging, giving them the money they needed, and letting them do their thing.
Huh, I’d heard she was a bit of a terror, constantly trying to get away without the white stripe in her hair because she thought it made her look old and worried that everyone assumed she was doing TV because she was broke.
Did Frances B put on that tremulous voice for the Aunt Bea character? It is hard to imagine her as a successful stage actress with that voice.
It was the official spelling in the show’s credits. The reason why they used “Bee” instead of “Bea” was because the writers decided to call her that.
Yeah, I was thinking of how it always sounded like Andy was calling her “Ain’t Bee” myself. 
That is exactly the what they wanted in the character.
She was supposed to be all those things.
Actually i never found her that annoying
And i’m afraid you probably are in low company there.
TV audiences loved Julia Childs remember.
Also, she kept getting stalked by that horny French skunk.
Aunt Bea was primarily a foil for misogynistic jokes. I hated storylines centered on her for that reason.
I’m confused due to your lack of antecedent. Did they use “Bee” or “Bea” in the credits? And, if the latter, when did the writers start spelling it “Bee” instead?
Also, I’m assuming we all agree those would be pronounced the same way, like the stinging insect.
We had a very long thread about this sort of thing, if people want to search for it, but frankly, I don’t think we need to raise it’s desiccated corpse.
And in my Pathfinder world, there is an order of Witches in a place called the Witch Downs, where Aunt Bee is the 3rd highest level witch, very much a rumormonger and attention whore who is also secretly evil and a member of a Hag coven. 
but can she make a good pie?
My favorite Aunt Bea episode was when for some reason, she was in charge of a couple of inmates at her house and she worked them so hard doing chores that they were terrified of being sent there again.
I read somewhere that Andy and Frances had a reconciliation shortly before she died. It seems to me that in the early days of television, a lot of the theater veterans thought television was beneath them and perhaps that resentment of having to do this lesser job made them unpleasant to work with.
Just had to add to this thread with this gem.