Elizabeth Harrower Seabold (May 28, 1918 - December 10, 2003) was an American actress and screenwriter.
Betty Louise Foss was born into the world during World War I in Alameda, California and the great flu epidemic. Within six weeks her mother died, her father had a nervous breakdown, and relatives passed her care around. Babies were supposed to draw the deadly flu, so in a short while she was placed in a San Francisco orphanage...perhaps someone would overlook her German name and adopt? By age nine months she had learned to wring her hands and cry big tears in silence. William and Jessie Harrower were not young. He was a gentle Scottish immigrant who read Webster's Dictionary for fun; she was a force of nature with a shady past and a passion to make life perfect for this child. Betty Lou was read aloud to on her Daddy's lap: "The Song of Hiawatha:" "By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water..." Betty Lou had French lessons, speech lessons, piano lessons. Jessie just knew she must have talent.
At the bottom of the Depression, William's salary was cut in half, and Jessie decided to take her girl out of school and off to Hollywood to begin an acting career. The very fine girls' school wanted to keep their promising student and offered a 100% scholarship, but there was no stopping Jessie, and formal education ended for her at age fifteen.
Hollywood in the 30's was no kinder than now. Mother and daughter lived on bacon from a hot plate while Betty Lou turned into a red head, a platinum blonde, a woman who spoke with a British accent named Eve St. John...a woman who spoke with a Scottish brogue named Beth Alden. Finally she settled on 'Elizabeth Harrower', a clever lass with brown hair, great eyes and a beautiful voice. She got a nose job she didn't need and wore a riding habit everywhere, the one outfit she could afford. She also carried a little leather whip.
Elizabeth was romantic and engaged three times to various actors, but when World War II became the great reality she married in a rush a handsome Air Force cadet she'd met in the fifth grade. Actress Susan Seaforth Hayes was Harrower's daughter who was born in 1943. Her father, Harry Seabold, lived with his glamorous bride for 90 days, through his basic training near Oklahoma City. Susan was conceived, he shipped out...and remained overseas for 33 months. Elizabeth returned to her family home in Berkeley...wrote hundreds of letters...and watched her tummy grow. On the big day, when she was writhing in the long labor of natural childbirth, the doctor slapped her face and told her to snap out of it. Different times. She always referred to Susan as her 1943 production. Then Television arrived. She worked more, and in movies, too.
By the end of the 60's she'd worked everywhere as an actress, but was still running the Alvarado Terrace house, when one particular person climbed the stairs and asked to stay. By now the guests were all female students from the Bible School across the street, but this girl had been batting around the California Foster Care System for years and needed a legal guardian as well as a room. Elizabeth said, "Yes," and began to salt and pepper Kathleen's life with advice and criticism. Suddenly Susan had a live-in sister, and Elizabeth had a blessing.
She appeared in a number of films (many uncredited) but also co-starred in films such as True Grit and The Sterile Cuckoo both made in 1969. In the late 1970s, Harrower served as Head Writer for the NBC Daytime soap opera Days of our Lives, where her daughter Susan Seaforth Hayes was then a cast member. She went on to write for The Young and the Restless in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 2003 Harrower received rave reviews for her performance as a drunken con artist on The Young and the Restless. Her last writing stint was on the short lived soap Generations in 1991.
Harrower died of cancer in 2003 and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
| Preceded by Ann Marcus |
Head Writer of Days of our Lives 1979 - 1980 |
Succeeded by Ruth Brooks Flippen |