Cherokee actor Betty Ann Carr paid experience forward

Acting is a highly competitive profession. It often requires years of work in many different venues to finally achieve that first break. For Betty Ann Brown, a farm outside of Asbury, Missouri, did not appear to be the place to launch an acting career. But by diligently working her way through Joplin Junior College and later San Diego State College, she used her education and Cherokee heritage to land roles in the comedy “Laugh-In” and the police drama “Cade’s County.” She followed that by teaching young Indian actors at the American Indian Workshop so she could pay her experience forward.

She was born Sept. 6, 1942, to Raymond and Helen Marie Brown in rural Tennessee. She was the oldest of the couple’s six children. Raymond Brown was of Cherokee heritage, while her mother was of French h