Frances Bavier may be best known for her role as the kind-hearted but firm Aunt Bee on The Andy Griffith Show, but she infamously wasn’t much like her character in real life. Behind the soft smile was ...

Frances Bavier spent more than four decades working in stage, film and television, but for generations of fans she will always be Aunt Bee—the kind-hearted, apron-wearing matriarch from The Andy ...

In her flowered dress and apron, Aunt Bee delighted the Mayberry townsfolk with her fried chicken and pecan pies, floating cheerfully through a world of church picnics and county fairs. And in real ...