Betsy Jones-Moreland once said that she never decided to be an actress, it just happened, one step after the other, and that she resisted all the way. She started out doing office work in New York, working for the organization that owned TV shows like Gabby Hayes and Howdy Doody. To overcome shyness, she took an acting class, and to prove to herself that the strategy had worked, she got a job as a showgirl. This in turn led to a role in road company of the Broadway hit The Solid Gold Cadillac, which took her to California. There, she began appearing in movies, first in small parts at Columbia, followed by leads in Roger Corman movies. She ended her career playing a judge in the 1990s series of Perry Mason movies with Raymond Burr, lifelong animal lover Betsy concentrated on animal rescue work.
