Andy Griffith & Oscars: Iconic Actor Missed In Academy's 'In Memoriam' Honors

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FILE - This March 6, 1987 file photo shows actor Andy Griffith in Toluca Lake, Calif. Griffith, whose homespun mix of humor and wisdom made "The Andy Griffith Show" an enduring TV favorite, died Tuesday, July 3, 2012. He was 86. (AP Photo/Doug Pizac, file)
FILE - This March 6, 1987 file photo shows actor Andy Griffith in Toluca Lake, Calif. Griffith, whose homespun mix of humor and wisdom made "The Andy Griffith Show" an enduring TV favorite, died Tuesday, July 3, 2012. He was 86. (AP Photo/Doug Pizac, file)

The 85th annual Academy Awards took a moment Sunday evening to honor a number of late Hollywood greats. The memoriam nodded to an extraordinary group, including Charles Durning, Jack Klugman, Nora Ephron and Richard Zanuck. However, some actors and actresses were noticeably absent from the list.

Andy Griffith, who died on July 3, 2012 at the age of 86, wasn't included as a part of the televised memoriam. Griffith is perhaps best known for his television shows "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Matlock," but he appeared in numerous films, including "A Face in the Crowd."

Griffith wasn't alone, of course: As Zap2it notes, many other famous faces were left off the Oscars In Memoriam segment on Sunday night:

[Larry] Hagman, "Snakes on a Plane" director David R. Ellis, Donna Summer, Gore Vidal, "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" director Mel Stuart, "Gone With the Wind" actress Ann Rutherford and Oscar nominees Joyce Redman and Susan Tyrrell. [...] Phyllis Diller, Conrad Bain, Lupe Ontiveros, Sherman Hemsley, Russell Means and Robin Sachs.

The Oscars put an expanded In Memoriam slideshow online to honor more of the stars who died in 2012, but even that missed some names. (Diller, Bain and Ontiveros among them.)

This is not the first time the Oscars have snubbed some names in the In Memoriam montage. From earlier HuffPost Entertainment coverage:

The In Memoriam segment, an obituary in montage form that honors members of the Hollywood filmmaking community lost over the last year, officially became a part of the broadcast in 1994. Since, many departed stars have been unceremoniously snubbed from the roll call -- from Farah Fawcett and Brad Renfro to Corey Haim and Harry Morgan. Those omissions are usually chalked up to time (the AMPAS said Renfro just didn't make the final cut) or big-screen influence (Fawcett and Morgan weren't necessarily best known for their film work). Per Ciepy, however, there could be another reason: a lack of champions on the In Memoriam committee.

The 2013 Academy Awards were hosted by Seth MacFarlane at Hollywood's Dolby Theater.

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2013 Oscars

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