Betty Ann Lynn was born August 29, 1926 in Kansas City. The lovely actress is best remembered as Thelma Lou in Andy Griffith – the girlfriend of everyone’s favorite deputy, Barney Fife. We all know a lot more about Thelma Lou than we do Betty Lynn.
Things like:
- Thelma Lou made great cashew fudge
- Thelma’s cousin Karen had a smoky voice and was a skeet shooting fool
- Thelma Lou’s cousin Mary Grace was… well, she was nice, real nice
- Thelma Lou wanted nothing more than to marry her beloved Barney Fife
- Opie crushed on Thelma Lou for a while until he realized she couldn’t (or wouldn’t) climb trees
- Thelma Lou played the piano and sang for the church choir – unlike her boyfriend, she could carry a tune
Thelma Lou’s portrayer, Betty Lynn, could also carry a tune. And dance! The lovely actress came from a musical background and even performed on Broadway in such musical productions as “Walk with Music” (1940) and “Oklahoma!” In the 1940s, Betty was signed by Twentieth Century Fox and appeared in several of their popular movies, billed herself briefly as “Betty Ann Lynn” before abruptly dropping her middle name from credits.
Betty Lynn made her movie debut in a small role in the classic Clifton Webb comedy Sitting Pretty in 1948. After another minor part in Apartment for Peggy (1948), she earned a featured part in June Bride (1948) starring Bette Davis and Robert Montgomery. She played kid sister to Barbara Bates.
While on hiatus from the Disney series “Texas John Slaughter” (1959), Betty tested and won the recurring role of Deputy Barney Fife’s steady girl on The Andy Griffith Show. She was part of the cast for five seasons, until Knotts officially left the series for motion pictures. The producers were thinking of keeping her on the show but Betty felt her role would be incomplete without her connection to the Fife character.
Betty Lynn had recurring roles on “Family Affair” (1966) and “My Three Sons” (1960) and guest parts on “The Farmer’s Daughter” (1963), “The Smith Family” (1971) and “Little House on the Prairie” (1974), and “Barnaby Jones” (1973). She rejoined the Mayberry cast for a reunion in the TV movie Return to Mayberry in 1986. In the same year, Andy Griffith hired her to play his secretary in a handful of episodes for his “Matlock” (1986) series. Betty’s last acting role on TV was in 1990 and, save for a stage appearance in “Love Letters” in 2002 opposite another former Mayberry resident Howard Morris, she officially left acting.
Residing in the same West Hollywood home since 1950, she moved away from California to a Mayberry-inspired town, Mount Airy, in North Carolina. This was actually Andy Griffith’s hometown. The actress never married and lives in a retirement community in Mount Airy.
Once, when asked why she became an actress, Betty Lynn said, “I wanted everybody to like me.“ She got more than she bargained for, then. Everyone LOVES Betty Lynn.
