Betty Lynn

Elizabeth Ann Theresa Lynn (August 29, 1926 – October 16, 2021) was an American actress. She played Thelma Lou, Deputy Barney Fife's girlfriend, on The Andy Griffith Show. During the 1940s and 1950s, she appeared in many films, including Sitting Pretty (1948), June Bride (1948), the original Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), and Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956). She also played a major role in an episode of the television series Little House on the Prairie. Early life Born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1926, Betty Lynn was the only child of Elizabeth Ann (née Lynn) and George A. Dailey. Her father was a civil engineer, who worked initially as a municipal employee for Kansas City and later as a private contractor. Her mother, described as "an accomplished mezzo-soprano", taught Betty in her early childhood to sing and enrolled her in the Kansas City Conservatory of Music when she was only five years old. Prior to that, according to federal census records, her parents had separated and divorced before April 1930. Their marriage is reported to have been a tumultuous one, with allegations that her father once threatened to shoot her mother in the abdomen when she was pregnant, and that after Betty's birth, he made additional threats that forced her mother on one occasion to hide in a locked closet to protect herself and her baby. Following her mother's breakup with Dailey, young Betty had little personal contact with her father. She went with her mother to live with her mother's parents, Josie (née Hill) and George Andrew Lynn, who also resided in Kansas City. Betty's grandfather, a railroad engineer, effectively served as her father figure from then on, until his death in Sacramento, California in 1959. USO tour When she was 17, Lynn auditioned to participate in United Service Organizations entertainment. At age 18 she was part of a USO tour in the China Burma India Theater during World War II. She realized the gravity of the situation when a Marine gave her a pistol saying, "You might need this."