Known For
Acting
Born
May 28, 1918
Died
Dec 10, 2003
Place of Birth
Alameda, California, USA
Credits
49 titles
Elizabeth Harrower
Biography
Betty Louise Foss was born during the final days of World War I in Alameda, California as the country plagued by a flu epidemic. Within six weeks, her mother died, her father had a nervous breakdown, and relatives passed her care around. As babies were thought to draw the deadly flu, Betty was eventually placed in a San Francisco orphanage where she was later adopted by Scottish immigrants William and Jessie Harrower and raised in Berkeley and Los Angeles. During the Great Depression her adoptive father's salary was cut in half and her adoptive mother decided to take Betty out of school and off to Hollywood to begin an acting career. After trying out several alter egos in the hopes of making an impression on someone in the industry, Betty Foss eventually settled on the identity of Elizabeth Harrower. Elizabeth Harrower appeared in "Becky Sharp (1935)", the first feature-length color film in 1935. She would continue to appear in hundreds of radio, television, film and stage productions over the next decades, most notably "True Grit (1969)". In 1942, Harrower married Harry Seabold, an Air Force cadet she had met in fifth grade. Their daughter, actress Susan Seaforth Hayes, was born in 1943. Her husband was called into war even before that and the marriage subsequently did not last. By the 1970s Elizabeth Harrower had met soap opera scribe William J. Bell and she would eventually start her writing career and became head writer of "Days of Our Lives (1965)" from 1979-1980. She went on to write for Bell's "The Young and the Restless (1973)" in the 1980s. Her last writing stint was on the short-lived soap opera "Generations (1989)" in 1991. In 2003, already while taking chemotherapy she had a prominent limited run as Charlotte Ramsey on "The Young and the Restless (1973)". She died shortly thereafter at age 85.
Known For
Filmography
Generations
Writer
I Love You...Good-bye
Mrs. Freeman
A Brand New Life
Margaret Kalman
The Waltons
The Adventures of Nick Carter
Sister Effie
Columbo
Board Member (uncredited)
Shoot Out
Housekeeper
Escape from the Planet of the Apes
Reporter at Hotel (uncredited)
Vanishing Point
Communications Officer
The Immortal
The Sterile Cuckoo
Landlady (uncredited)
True Grit
Mrs. Ross
Mayberry R.F.D.
Mrs. Meredith
Shane
Myra Torrey
That Girl
Batman
Picnicking Woman (uncredited)
Batman
Miss Prentice
Cat Ballou
Townswoman (uncredited)
Zebra in the Kitchen
Town Gossip
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Mrs. Jones
The Virginian
Mrs. Crandall
The Wild Westerners
Martha Bernard
Don't Knock the Twist
Ruth Emerson
House of Women
Mrs. Potter
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
French Prisoner (uncredited)
Hazel
Edith
Surfside 6
The Andy Griffith Show
Customer
I Passed for White
Woman in Employment Office
Dennis the Menace
The Twilight Zone
Woman (uncredited)
The FBI Story
Clerk (uncredited)
77 Sunset Strip
Marjorie Morningstar
Miss Kimble (uncredited)
Teacher's Pet
Clara Dibney (uncredited)
Going Steady
Mrs. Armstrong
Perry Mason
Woman Artist
M Squad
Walls' Secretary
The Great Gildersleeve
Gunsmoke
Mrs. O'Roarke
The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp
Father Knows Best
Librarian
Thunder Pass
Mrs. Hemp
Letter to Loretta
Miss Himbler
Plymouth Adventure
Elizabeth Hopkins
Four Star Playhouse
Nurse
Does Christ Live in Your Home?
The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok
The Pilgrimage Play
Woman of Samaria