Jim Nabors has married his partner, at the age of 82. Nabors, the star of The Andy Griffith show and its spin-off Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. married his partner of 38 years in a low-key ceremony. Hawaii News Now broke the news and spoke to Nabors on the telephone. He confirmed the news of his marriage and said “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. 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 and his partner Stan Cadwallader travelled to Washington State to get married, as gay marriages became legal there in December 2012. They married at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel, Seattle. A couple of their friends, who live down the street from them went along to act as witnesses. “It's pretty obvious that we had no rights as a couple,” Jim explained. “Yet when you've been together 38 years, I think something's got to happen there, you've got to solidify something. And at my age, it's probably the best thing to do."

Jim revealed that he has never hidden his sexuality, though he has never explicitly spoken about it to the media – much like Jodie Foster, who recently used her Golden Globes awards acceptance speech to explain that she had valued her privacy above all else during her long career and had felt no need to make a grand statement to the press about her sexuality.