Maggie Peterson, Actress on “The Andy Griffith Show,” Died at the Age of 81.

Maggie Peterson is a singer and actress best known for playing Charlene Darling, the sole daughter of a bluegrass-loving rural family, on The Andy Griffith Show. She is currently 81 years old.
Peterson died in Colorado on Sunday, according to her relatives. Her health “deteriorated” after her husband, jazz musician Gus Mancuso, died in December, they claimed. They’ve been married for more than four decades.
Peterson made her debut on the CBS show “The Andy Griffith Show” in 1963, playing Charlene near the end of the comedy’s third season, when she led her family in a lively rendition of “The Salty Dog.”
By 1966, she had appeared in four more episodes of the show — once sharing a wedding dress with Don Knotts — before taking on a different role in the final season of “Guber’s Girls” in 1968.
Peterson auditioned for Griffith’s Sheriff Andy Taylor, but the role went to Eleanor Donahue. Her Charlene loves Andy so much that she ends up naming her daughter Andrina after him after marrying Dodd Walsh (Hawker Howell).
Margaret Ann Peterson was born on January 10, 1941 in Greeley, Colorado. Her father is a doctor and her mother is a housewife.
They formed a musical group called Ja-Da Quartet with her brother and two of his friends. Spotted by Griffith’s agent and invited to New York, they ended up on various shows hosted by Perry Cuomo and Pat Boone, and recorded an album, The Happiest Sound.
In 1964, Peterson joined the NBC series The Bill Dana Show — a spinoff of Danny Thomas Making Room for Dad, like The Andy Griffith Show — as Sue, the coffee shop waitress West, starred in the second and final season of the sitcom. In 1969, she appeared in Griffith’s feature films “Angel in My Pocket” and “Eros? tie.
She returned as Charlene in the 1986 TV movie Return to Mayberry, and has also appeared on shows like Green Acres, Gomer Pyle: USMC, The Odd Couple and Love, American Style, and more.
After retiring from show business in the late 1980s, she worked for the Nevada Film Commission and starred in films such as Casino (1995), Mars Attack! (1996) and Pay Forward (2000).