Betsy Brandt is an American actress who began her career professionally in 1998. She is best known for her roles in the TV series Breaking Bad, and CBS Life in Pieces.
Betsy Brandt Bio
Betsy Ann Brandt was born on March 14, 1973, in Bay City, Michigan to an electrician dad Gary Brandt and a teacher mom Janet. Her family has German roots. Brandt fell in love with theater from a very early age.
During her time at Bay City Western High School in Auburn Michigan, she developed a particular interest in directing musical theaters. Brandt had originally planned to stick to directing but after landing the lead role in a high school production of Exit the Body, she had a change of mind.
Immediately after graduating from high school in 1991, Betsy enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She graduated in 1996 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting.
Within the next couple of years, Brandt honed her acting skills at Harvard’s Institute for Advanced Theater Training, as well as Scotland’s Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow.
Brandt then launched her professional career fully in 1998 starting with short films. At this time, she had relocated to Seattle, Washington. To better her chances at scoring bigger gigs, Betsy would later move to Los Angeles. For the next 10 years of her career, Betsy appeared in only short films, a few TV films and had small parts in numerous TV shows from Judging Amy to ER, Without a Trace, The Guardian, CSI, Boston Legal and more.
And then came 2008 when Betsy got the biggest role of her career, the role of Marie Schrader on the AMC drama series Breaking Bad. However, it didn’t come easy, Brandt had to audition for three different roles before landing the role of Marie.
“For Breaking Bad, It was like, that’s one of the best pilots, probably the best pilot I have ever read,” she once gushed about the series.
The show did a lot to improve her career as Brandt began landing other top jobs. In film, she appeared in Magic Mike (2012) and made guest appearances in shows like Miami Medical, The Whole Truth, and No Ordinary Family. After Breaking Bad came to an end, Betsy had recurring roles in Private Practice and Parenthood.
Her next big small-screen gig came in the short-lived “The Michael J Fox Show.” Betsey played a series regular role in Life In Pieces.
Net Worth
Betsy has done well for herself since joining the entertainment industry. Her Breaking Bad gig is no doubt her best-paid gig. Her net worth is estimated at $4 million.
Husband
Betsy Brandt’s husband is Gary Olsen. They got married in 1996 and have stayed happily married and supportive of each other ever since. Gary Olsen who was born in 1973 has since October 2004 been working as the Director of PreSales software company OpenText.
Like his wife, Olsen attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign which is where they met. He graduated in 1995 with a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering.
A year after leaving college, Olsen began working at a worldwide information technology company, Unisys as a lead consultant and project manager. He remained in that position for five years and a month until January 2001 when he left to join OpenText as a Senior Solutions Consultant. After three years and two months, Olsen was promoted to his current position.
Betsy and her husband live together with their family in Los Angeles. They share two children together; a daughter named Josephine Olsen and a son named Freddie Olsen who was born in 2008.
In June 2012, after Betsy was done filming her role in Breaking Bad, she moved with her family to New York residing in an apartment in the Upper West Side. However, they still kept their Los Angeles home.
Body Measurements
Breast: 34 inches (86 cm)
Waist: 25 inches (63 cm)
Hips: 32 inches (82 cm)
Standing at 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m) tall, Betsy is one of the tallest women you’d see in Hollywood. On the celebrity feet database website Wiki Feet, Betsy Brandt scores a 5 out of 5 stars for her feet. She wears a shoe size 9 (US).
