Bringing ‘Thelma Lou’ back to life in ‘Mayberry’

MOUNT AIRY, N.C. (AP) — When actress Betty Lynn first moved to Andy Griffith’s quaint hometown and inspiration for the eponymous show, she couldn’t go to the grocery store without meeting enthusiastic fans, calling out to “Thelma Lou.”

“They’d hug me and kiss me,” says the actress, who played Deputy Barney Fife’s girlfriend on the hit television show. “Some of them cry.”

Eight years later, Lynn is “just another local,” says Terri Forrest Champney, a volunteer at the Andy Griffith Museum. “She’s just one of us.”

Except for every third Friday of the month, when the 88-year-old actress transforms from a local to a legend.

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