Elizabeth MacRae

Elizabeth Hendon MacRae (born February 22, 1936) is an American actress who performed in dozens of television series and in nine feature films, working predominantly in productions released between 1958 and the late 1980s. Among her more widely recognized roles is her recurring character as Lou-Ann Poovie on the sitcom Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., which was originally broadcast from 1964 to 1969. Early life and drama training Born in Columbia, South Carolina in 1936, Elizabeth MacRae is the middle child of three children of Alabama native Dorothy (née Hendon) and James C. MacRae of North Carolina. Her father, an attorney, moved the family before April 1940 to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he opened a law practice and later served as a superior court judge. Growing up in Fayetteville, Elizabeth received her primary education there, and her parents sent her to Washington, D.C. to finish her secondary education at Holton-Arms, an independent college-preparatory school for girls. Following her graduation from Holton-Arms, MacRae decided to pursue an acting career and in 1956 traveled to Atlanta, Georgia to audition for a part in director Otto Preminger's production Saint Joan. She failed to be cast in the film, but in a 1959 newspaper interview with syndicated Hollywood columnist Joe Hyams, MacRae credited Preminger for encouraging her not to abandon her career plans and instead to seek intensive, professional performance training. "'Mr. Preminger'", she recounted to Hyams, "'told me then to keep in touch with him and advised me to go to New York and study because I had intuitive talent'". Heeding Preminger's advice, MacRae in October 1956 moved to New York City, where for two years she studied with Uta Hagen at the Herbert Berghof Studio and gained stage experience playing assorted characters in off-Broadway and summer-stock productions. She also resumed her artistic training, attending classes on drawing and painting at the Art Students League in Manhattan. "Actress and artist" During her childhood and throughout her teenage years, MacRae was encouraged by her mother to develop and refine her artistic talents, especially in drawing and painting portraits. Later, when she was in New York studying acting, the aspiring stage performer supported herself with money she earned through commissions for her artwork. Earl Wilson, another syndicated newspaper columnist, recounted in a 1958 article that MacRae "started drawing because my older brother did.