Hope Summers

Hope Summers was an American actress who worked in regional theater, radio, television and film. Born in Mattoon, Illinois, she finished Northwestern University's School of Speech in 1923, taught speech and diction in Evanston, then moved to Peoria, Illinois, where she ran Bradley University's speech department and directed local theater. She gave one-woman shows from the 1930s and acted in radio, including the anthology Destination Freedom, before she broke into network television in 1951 with Hawkins Falls. Her first Hollywood feature came in 1957 with a small credited part in Zero Hour!. She drew notice in 1958 as shopkeeper Hattie Denton on The Rifleman, guest-starred on dozens of series, and appeared 36 times in The Andy Griffith Show as Clara Edwards, Aunt Bee's friend, plus five on Mayberry R.F.D. Her credited film parts included Rosemary's Baby (1968), and she was a regular on the 1978 sitcom Another Day. For nearly 20 years she voiced Mrs. Butterworth in commercials.