Betty Ann Lynn was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and her name is as light, breezy, and innocent as the characters she played on film and TV. She is pleasantly remembered for playing TV's sweet-as-apple-pie "Thelma Lou," who had the tough end of the bargain as the ever-patient girlfriend of Don Knotts's neurotic "Barney Fife" character on The Andy Griffith Show.
Betty came from a musical background as the daughter of a singer and began her career as a young teen performing in both supper clubs and on Broadway. She even entertained the troops with her light soprano at USO tent shows towards the end of World War II.
She made her movie debut in a small, sprightly role in the classic Clifton Webb comedy Sitting Pretty (1948). After another minor part in Apartment for Peggy (1948),she earned a featured part playing kid sister to Barbara Bates in June Bride (1948) starring Bette Davis and Robert Montgomery.
Betty focused on 50s TV and also returned to the stage with a production of "The Moon Is Blue" (1954). She still appeared occasionally on the larger screen but, for the most part, was either unbilled or the pictures themselves were obscure.
The producers were thinking of keeping her on the show but Betty felt her role was incomplete, without her connection to Don Knotts, after Barney Fife left. She continued to work on TV, never straying far from her wholesome image, with 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).
After a 1978 part on an episode of Barnaby Jones (1973),little was seen of her until she rejoined the Mayberry cast for a reunion in the TV movie Return to Mayberry (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 occurred 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 out of state to Mount Airy, North Carolina - the primary real-life inspiration for the fictional Mayberry. The never-married former actress lived in a retirement community there till her death on October 16, 2021, at the age of 95.
