Ken Berry

  Actor, Music

American actor, dancer, and singer Kenneth Ronald Berry was born on November 3, 1933, in Moline in Rock Island County and died on December 1, 2018.

He starred on the television series F Troop, The Andy Griffith Show, Mayberry R.F.D. and Mama’s Family.

Berry also appeared on Broadway in The Billy Barnes Revue, headlined as George M. Cohan in the musical George M! and provided comic relief for the medical drama Dr. Kildare, with Richard Chamberlain in the 1960s.

His first recording experience came with the Billy Barnes cast albums: one from the Broadway performance of The Billy Barnes Review and the second in Billy Barnes’ L.A.

Following an appearance on The Andy Williams Show, Williams asked her to record a solo album on his new Barnaby label.

With a full orchestra, Ken Berry RFD was released in 1970.

He got married to Jackie Joseph, a Billy Barnes castmate, on May 29, 1960.

The couple adopted two children together: son John Kenneth in 1964 and daughter Jennifer Kate in 1965.

In 1976 the couple divorced.

John his son, who later became the co-founder of the Indie rock band Idaho, died in 2016 of brain cancer at the age of 51.

He “loved cars and anything with wheels” from the time he was a young child, particularly smaller cars, and maintained a 1966 Mini Moke.

An avid motorcyclist, he camped and rode the local Los Angeles mountain ranges.

He died in Burbank, California at 85 years old.

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