Legendary television actor Andy Griffith, who made a name for himself with his self-titled comedy "The Andy Griffith Show" and later on the long-running series "Matlock," has died at the age of 86.

Griffith was rushed to a North Carolina hospital by an EMS team after they were called to his home Tuesday morning. Judy Panitch, a rep for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to where the actor donated a great deal of time and funds, later confirmed the news of his death to Fox411 Tuesday.

Griffith died about 7 a.m. at his coastal home in Manteo, Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie said in a statement. The family will release further information, Doughtie said.

He had suffered a heart attack and underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 2000.

Griffith's career spanned more than a half-century on stage, film and television, but he would always be best known as Sheriff Andy Taylor in the television show set in a North Carolina town not too different from Griffith's own hometown of Mount Airy, N.C.