Betty Lynn
Betty Lynn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Elizabeth Ann Theresa "Betty" Lynn (born August 29, 1926) is a former American actress. She is best known for her role as Thelma Lou, Deputy Barney Fife's girlfriend, on The Andy Griffith Show. Betty Lynn was born in Kansas City, Missouri, Her mother, Elizabeth Ann Lynn, was "an accomplished mezzo-soprano" who taught Betty to sing and started her in the Kansas City Conservatory of Music when she was 5 years old. Lynn had little personal contact with her father, who once reportedly threatened to shoot her mother in the abdomen when she was pregnant. After Lynn's birth, her mother once took shelter in a locked closet with the baby as her husband threatened the two. They divorced when Lynn was 5 years old. Lynn's grandfather, George Andrew Lynn, a railroad engineer, took on the role of father as she grew up. Betty Lynn began her acting career in radio as a member of the cast on a daytime drama on a station in Kansas City. On Broadway, she appeared in Walk with Music (1940) and Oklahoma! (1943). She was discovered in a Broadway production by Darryl F. Zanuck and signed to 20th Century Fox. A clause in her contract allowed the studio to drop her at six-month intervals, leading to recurring concerns for Lynn. She said, "I was a redhead with freckles and didn’t have a bosom. I prayed so hard they’d keep picking me up." Lynn made her film debut in the 1948 film Sitting Pretty opposite Robert Young.
