Actress Elizabeth “Betsy” MacRae Halsey passed away Monday (May 27) in Fayetteville, North Carolina, according to local outlet CityView. She was 88 years old.
Her cause of death has not yet been confirmed, but her nephew Jim MacRae said, “She had a wonderful life. She was bright and articulate. She was still getting fan mail at Highland House.”
The actress is best known for playing Lou-Ann Poovie, the girlfriend of Jim Nabors’ protagonist in the 1960s sitcom Gomer Pyle, USMC. Her television career led her to appear on General Hospital and Days of Our Lives for a brief stint in the ’70s.
MacRae’s last acting credit was in 1989, but the television star had already cemented a prolific career since getting her start in 1958.
Born Feb. 22, 1936 in Columbia, South Carolina, MacRae grew up in Fayetteville and graduated from a college prep school for the arts. According to CityView, she soon set out for New York City in 1956 to begin her acting career.
“Daddy gave me $100 and told me to come home when it was gone,” she once said, per The Hollywood Reporter. “But I got a job modeling within a week and started studying drama and speech to lose my Southern accent.”
She soon landed her first role in television, an uncredited part as a witness in the 1958 series The Verdict Is Yours, launching her decades-long career. She went on to star in Surfside 6, Gunsmoke, The Fugitive, and Search for Tomorrow, amongst several others. She also delivered a groundbreaking performance as Ladyfish in the animated comedy The Incredible Mr. Limpet.
But MacRae shot to fame with her role as Lou-Ann in Gomer Pyle. In a 2015 interview, MacRae explained that she “had answered a call to read and I was very deliberately showing no southern accent. Director Lee Phillips walked by. He knew me and came in and asked how was his favorite southern belle. The casting director asked me if I was from North Carolina and could I do a southern accent. He next asked If I could sing. I said I couldn’t. He told me I had the part.”
In 1974, the actress was cast as a the co-lead of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 film The Conversation opposite Gene Hackman. The film went on to win a Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or and was nominated for an Oscar.
In the ’80s, MacRae began a second career as a a drug and alcohol counselor with the Freedom Institute in New York before she later returned to her hometown of Fayetteville with her husband, the late Charles Day Halsey Jr.
MacRae is survived by her five step-children and her nieces and nephews.
