httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NuBbIUvYbI

Jim Nabors, the shy Alabaman whose down-home comedy made him a TV star as Gomer Pyle and whose surprisingly operatic voice kept him a favorite in Las Vegas and other showplaces, died Thursday.

Jim Nabors died Thursday at his Hawaii home Nabor’s husband says his health had declined in the past year Nabors was best known as Gomer Pyle, but was also a singer.

Nabors, who underwent a liver transplant in 1994 after contracting hepatitis B, died peacefully at his home in Hawaii after his health had declined for the past year, said his husband, Stan Cadwallader, who was by his side.

Nabors’ friends had known for years that he was gay, but he had never said anything to the media.

“It’s pretty obvious that we had no rights as a couple, yet when you’ve been together 38 years, I think something’s got to happen t, you’ve got to solidify something,” Nabors told Hawaii News Now at the time.

For two seasons beginning in 1969, CBS presented “The Jim Nabors Hour,” on which he joshed with guest stars, did sketches with Sutton and fellow “Gomer” veteran Ronnie Schell, and sang country and opera.

“Offstage, Nabors retained some of the awed innocence of Gomer. At the height of his fame in 1969, he admitted,”For the first four years of the series, I didn’t trust my success.

Gomer Pyle