The actress who played Thelma Lou on The Andy Griffith Show has died. Betty Lynn was Barney Fife’s (Don Knotts) love interest for a half-decade on the popular television program.
Later, in a made-for-TV movie called Return to Mayberry (1986), the on-screen couple would marry.
However, fans mostly just knew Thelma Lou as Fife’s sweetheart, and it’s that legacy she’d live on after she retired from acting. By the time she joined the show she was a veteran stage and screen player with a diverse resume; a 1959 film called Louisiana Hussy stands apart from the wholesome fare she’d soon be attached to. In the years after The Andy Griffith Show ended production, she’d pick up notable roles in network programs like My Three Sons, Family Affair and Matlock, the latter being an on-stage reunion with Andy Griffith, who played the show’s title character.
Ron Howard, one of the show’s few surviving cast members, remembered Lynn upon her death at age 95. He played Opie Taylor.
RIP Betty Lynn. She played Thelma Lou on #TAGS & brightened every scene she was in & every shooting day she was on set. I saw her last a few years ago where she still lit up the room with her positivity. It was great to have known and worked with her. She truly was 95yrs young.
Lynn “brightened every scene she was in & every shooting day she was on set,” he writes, adding she did the same decades later when they came across each other one final time.
As Thelma Lou, Lynn was in just 26 episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. Here she is opposite Aneta Corsaut (Helen Crump) trying to convince a woman to go on a date with Gomer Pyle.
Fox News points out that the Andy Griffith Museum in Mount Airy, N.C., announced Lynn’s death, saying she passed after a short illness. Lynn moved to Mount Airy in 2007 and was a regular at reunions. She is survived by several cousins. A private burial is planned, to take place in Culver City, Calif.
Jamie O’Hara, 70
Nashville singer-songwriter O’Hara, who wrote hits for the Judds and more, died on Jan. 7 after a battle with an aggressive cancer.
Ed Bruce, 81
Singer-songwriter Bruce, who wrote “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” and more classic country hits, died in Clarksville, Tenn., on Jan. 8, of natural causes.
country music deaths 2021
country music deaths 2021
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Larry Willoughby, 70
Willoughby, the A&R executive who helped now-superstar Luke Bryan get his deal with Capitol Records, died on Jan. 14 of COVID-19.
Jason “Rowdy” Cope, 42
Cope, co-founder of the country-rock band the Steel Woods, died in his sleep on Jan. 16. His cause of death was linked to his Type II diabetes, diagnosed in late 2018.
Jimmie Rodgers, 87
Rodgers, who had a run of crossover country and pop hits in the 1950s and 1960s, died from kidney disease on Jan. 18. He had also been diagnosed with COVID-19.
Randy Parton, 67
Parton, a singer and songwriter who was the younger brother of Dolly Parton, died after a battle with cancer, his sister shared on Jan. 21. “You Are My Christmas,” a collaboration with his sister from her 2020 holiday album, was his final song.
Jim Weatherly, 77
Weatherly’s best-known song is “Midnight to Train to Georgia,” but Ray Price, a Country Music Hall of Fame artist, released “You’re the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me” in 1973, and it became his final No. 1 hit. The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer died on Feb. 4.
Richie Albright, 81
Albright, who died on Feb. 9, was Waylon Jennings’ longtime drummer. He joined the Waylors in the early 1960s, before they moved to Nashville together in 1966.
Scott Whitehead
Singer Whitehead, of the early ’00s country duo Hometown News, died unexpectedly on March 12. No cause of death or age was made available.
Taylor Dee, 33
Texas-based country singer Dee died following injuries sustained in a rollover car wreck on March 14.
JT Gray, 75
Gray, the longtime owner of the Station Inn, died early on March 20, 40 years after he bought the famous Nashville bluegrass club in 1981.
Bill Owens, 85
Owens was Dolly Parton’s uncle, and played a key role in helping her launch her career in music; he also wrote several hundred songs throughout the years. Parton announced his death on April 7.
Charlie Black, 71
Black, a prolific country songwriter and member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, died on April 23. In addition to penning tracks for artists including Kenny Rogers, Tanya Tucker, Brenda Lee, Alan Jackson, Phil Vassar, Collin Raye and more, he is perhaps best known as the co-writer behind a string of Anne Murray songs in the late 1970s and early ’80s.
Patsy Bruce, 81
Bruce — one-half of the songwriting team behind “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” — died on May 16. She’d also spent time as the president of Nashville Songwriters Association International, and worked as a casting director for television shows including Maverick and the movie Urban Cowboy.
Dewayne Blackwell, 84
Blackwell, an iconic songwriter who co-wrote Garth Brooks’ megahit “Friends in Low Places,” died on May 23. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2017.
B.J. Thomas, 78
Thomas, who was best known for a string of pop and country hits in the 1960s and ’70s, died on May 29, after battling Stage IV lung cancer. He’d revealed his diagnosis in late March.
Sanford Clark, 85
Known for his 1956 hit song “The Fool,” rockabilly artist Sanford Clark died on July 24 in Joplin, Mo. He had been receiving treatment for cancer but passed away after being diagnosed with COVID-19.
