The above photo is (of course) from The Andy Griffith Show, a series that has had one of the most stunning afterlives of anything that ever appeared on television. There probably isn't a moment any day in this country when some station somewhere isn't airing a rerun and though five of its eight seasons were in black-and-white, people are watching. The man in the picture is Don Knotts and the lady is Betty Lynn, who played his lady friend, Thelma Lou.
Betty Lynn now resides in Mt. Airy, North Carolina, a town which has patterned certain streets after Mayberry, the fictional city in which The Andy Griffith Show took place. For years, various Mt. Airy events and promotions would fly Betty in to be a guest and its citizens and tourists were thrilled to meet her. She finally decided to move there and now she spends a lot of time making personal appearances, posing for photos, signing autographs and telling people about that iconic TV series.
She's doing a lot of it today. Today is Betty's 90th birthday. I hear they have her booked for a full day of parties and honors and signings and personal appearances…and given the time difference, she'll probably have done about eight of them by the time I get this piece posted to my blog.
When she finally gets back to her home there, I hope someone has delivered the flowers I sent her. Yeah, other people are doubtlessly sending her gifts and flowers but they can't possibly love her as much as I love her. Here's a photo that may help explain why…
That's a photo of Betty that I took when I was around fourteen years old. I took it in my back yard and it's of her in her back yard. Betty was my neighbor when I was growing up.
You may have an "aunt" or "uncle" to whom you are not actually related but you feel like you are. Betty was like an aunt to me — a wonderful, sweet aunt who was always doing things for me. I always tried to be a good "nephew" and do things for her.
Our homes were not far from the Twentieth-Century Fox movie studio in West Los Amgeles. Fox had her under contract starting in 1947 and her first two movies, both released in 1948 were Sitting Pretty, which also starred Clifton Webb, Maureen O'Hara and Robert Young, and June Bride, featuring Robert Montgomery and Bette Davis. In 1950, her family bought that house and in 1953, the Evaniers moved into the home next door with their one-year-old son, me.
The Lynns were wonderful neighbors, always coming to our aid and vice-versa. One time back when I was in high school, another kid punched me in the mouth. I'm not sure why he did that…maybe because I had punched him in the mouth first. (He's still the only person I've ever struck in my 64 years.) Anyway, the school nurse helped stop my gums from bleeding and being over-cautious, she suggested that I go see my orthodontist and have him check the damage. My parents were both working so when I got home, I went next door and got Betty to drive me to Dr. Seltzer's office in Beverly Hills where he said everything was fine.
A day or two later, I got to return the favor. Betty had locked herself out of her house and I knew how to jimmy open a certain window, climb in and open the front door from the inside. She locked herself out at least a dozen times over the years. I got to be pretty good at breaking into her house.
One time, she and her mother went off on a trip to Europe and her mother somehow left a big pot of ox-tail soup cooking on the stove. Her mother was the sweetest woman who ever walked this world but she was sometimes a bit — shall we say? — forgetful.
A few days after their departure, my mother came running into my room in a panic and said, "I think the Lynns' house is on fire!" There was a thick, black smoke billowing out of all the windows near the kitchen that had been left open a crack. My mother called the Fire Department but by the time they got there, I had broken into the house, made my way through the smoke to the kitchen and turned off the soup. Most heroic thing I ever did in my life. I would have done anything for the Lynns.
I'll tell some other stories about my lovely ex-neighbor one of these days. Right now, I just want to wish her the Happiest of Nineties. She really is an amazing lady.
As an actress, she did lots of things besides playing Thelma Lou. She was in quite a few movies, including Meet Me in Las Vegas, which I wrote about here. She was in quite a few TV shows, including Texas John Slaughter, which I wrote about here. I'm glad they're celebrating her entire career today. You can read about the celebration and about her life in this article.
In it, you'll notice they say that her home in West L.A. was robbed twice, which helped prompt her move to North Carolina. Yes, I was good at breaking into that house but I have airtight alibis for both dates. Besides, I would never have done anything to harm this woman. She was…and still is so wonderful.