Bettye Ackerman

Television actress Bettye Ackerman, a frequent supporting player on procedural dramas of the 1960s and '70s, is best known for her role as Dr. Maggie Graham on "Ben Casey." Ackerman started in television with a minor spot on "The Philco-Goodyear Television Playhouse" in 1953. She married actor Sam Jaffe three years later--he was 65 years old at the time. In 1961, she played Dr. Graham on "Ben Casey," an ABC medical drama that lasted six seasons. Jaffe played veteran doctor David Zorba on the show. She also did a 10-episode stint on the showbiz drama "Bracken's World." Later, Ackerman played Constance MacKenzie, made famous in the primetime soap "Peyton Place" by Dorothy Malone, in the melodrama's daytime incarnation "Return to Peyton Place." In addition to her acting, Ackerman was an artist with exhibits in Beverly Hills, and in Columbia, South Carolina. Ackerman's husband died of cancer in 1984. The couple had no children together. In 1998, she moved back to her native South Carolina and was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. She died of a stroke at age 82.