Betty Louise Foss was born in Alameda, California, during the final days of World War I, as the country was plagued by a devastating flu epidemic.
Within six short weeks, her mother tragically passed away, followed by her father's nervous breakdown, and subsequently, her relatives took turns caring for her.
As babies were believed to be particularly susceptible to the deadly flu, Betty was eventually placed in a San Francisco orphanage, where she was later adopted by Scottish immigrants William and Jessie Harrower.
Raised in Berkeley and Los Angeles, her adoptive father's salary was drastically cut in half during the Great Depression, prompting her adoptive mother to make the bold decision to take Betty out of school and off to Hollywood to pursue an acting career.
After trying out various personas in the hopes of making an impression on someone in the industry, Betty Foss eventually settled on the identity of Elizabeth Harrower.
Elizabeth Harrower made her screen debut in Becky Sharp (1935),the first feature-length color film, and would go on to appear in hundreds of radio, television, film, and stage productions over the next several decades, most notably True Grit (1969).
In 1942, Harrower married Harry Seabold, an Air Force cadet she had met in fifth grade, and their daughter, actress Susan Seaforth Hayes, was born the following year.
However, her husband was called into war even before that, and the marriage did not last.
By the 1970s, Elizabeth Harrower had met soap opera scribe William J. Bell and began her writing career, eventually becoming the head writer of Days of Our Lives (1965) from 1979-1980.
She went on to write for Bell's The Young and the Restless (1973) in the 1980s and her last writing stint was on the short-lived soap opera Generations (1989) in 1991.
In 2003, already undergoing chemotherapy, she had a prominent limited run as Charlotte Ramsey on The Young and the Restless (1973).
Tragically, she passed away shortly thereafter at the age of 85.
