Barbara Billingsley, definitive '50s TV mom, dead at 94
Barbara Billingsley, whose character of June Cleaver on the 1950's TV sitcom "Leave It to Beaver" helped define motherhood for a generation of baby boomers, died Saturday at the age of 94.
Her death was the result of a long illness and she died at her home in Santa Monica, a family spokeswoman told CNN.
Along with Jane Wyatt as Margaret Anderson on "Father Knows Best" and Donna Reed as Donna Stone on "The Donna Reed Show," Billingsley helped create an idealized depiction of the All-American TV mom living with her nuclear family in a post-World-War II, white-picket-fence fantasy neighborhood. Mayfield was the fictional community in which the Cleavers lived, and it was part Frank Capra's small-town America and part Utopian vision of the suburbs to which the rapidly expanding middle class was already starting to move at the end of the 1950s and early '60s when the series aired.
These iconic TV moms to a character were trim, upbeat, nurturing to the children, submissive to their husbands, and always well-dressed to the point of wearing pearls and heels around the houses they never seemed to leave except for charity work, a visit to their children's school or neighborhood gatherings at another house on the block. None seemed nicer and more understanding of her children's failings and fears than Billingsley's June Cleaver.
In episode after episode, she patiently (even happily) endured the occasional grumpiness and bluster of her husband, Ward, an accountant. And in the end, she always came through for her oldest son, Wally, and little Beaver, who in truth, seemed to be one of nature's thicker creations.
And like millions of other baby boomer kids living in neighborhoods and homes far less attractive and harmonious than that of the Cleavers, I kind of wished Billingsley's June Cleaver was my mom. It wasn't until much later in life that I realized why as a little kid I never missed this show if I could help it. And I felt bad about it at first. But I am too old to lie about such things now, and it provides honest unadorned testimony to the power of the character she helped create as an actress in the early days of television.
"She was as happy as a lark being recognized as America's mom," actor Tony Dow, who played Wally Cleaver, one of her TV sons, told CNN Saturday. "She had a terrific life and had a wonderful impact on everybody she knew, and even people she didn't know."
In a 2000 interview with CNN, Jerry Mathers, who played Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver, her other TV son, said "Barbara was always a true role model for me. She was a great actress. And in a lot of ways ... we kind of stifled her, because her true talent didn't really come out in 'Leave it Beaver.' She was like the straight man, but she has an awful lot of talent."
Here is some of what the CNN obituary had to say about Billingsley Saturday night:
Born December 22, 1915, in Los Angeles, Billingsley began her career as a model in New York City in 1936.
She was under contract to MGM in 1945 before becoming a household name with the launch of "Leave it to Beaver" in 1957.
Billingsley also voiced the role of Nanny in Nickelodeon's "Muppet Babies" from 1984 to 1991.
Billingsley is related by marriage to actor/producer Peter Billingsley, known for his starring role as Ralphie in the seasonal TV-movie classic "A Christmas Story," according to the Internet Movie Database. Peter Billingsley's mother, Gail Billingsley, is the cousin of Barbara's first husband, Glenn.
Billingsley, whose second and third husbands predeceased her, is survived by her two sons, Drew Billingsley of Granada Hills, California, and Glenn Billingsley of Phillips Ranch, California.
Asked once to compare real-life families to TV families, Billingsley responded, "I just wish that we could have more families like those. Family is so important, and I just don't think we have enough people staying home with their babies and their children."
(source:baltimoresun.com)
