The Only Major Actors Still Alive From Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation

Cast as Meredith, the sex worker who absconds with Caul’s recording at the behest of the Director (Robert Duvall), MacRae is a boozily charming delight. She’s easy to underestimate, which is due in part to her ditzy affect as well as her endearing portrayal of Jim Nabors’ girlfriend on “The Andy Griffith Show” spin-off “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.”

The South Carolina-born MacRae was a veteran television actor by the time Coppola cast her in “The Conversation.” She made her small-screen debut in 1958 on the courtroom drama “The Verdict Is Yours,” and worked steadily in the broadcast medium for the next 30-plus years. Throw on an episode of shows as different as “Rawhide,” “Kojak,” or “Rhoda,” and you might run across the enchanting Southerner. MacRae left the industry in the 1990s, and moved to North Carolina where, in 2001, she made a rare stage appearance in a regional theater production of “Picnic.” She turned 88 last February, and is hopefully savoring her retirement.