Barbara Billingsley
December 22, 1915 – October 16, 2010
With all due respect to Florence Henderson, the list of candidates that can truly be considered “America’s TV Mom” starts and ends with one name: June Cleaver.
Barbara Billingsley spent most of the first 20 years of her career paying her dues in walk-on movie roles and supporting character turns before she landed the biggest role of her life. At the age of 41, Billingsley was cast as the idyllic mom and housewife on the television sitcom, Leave it to Beaver. Though the show struggled a bit on its original CBS outing, it was picked up by ABC and became a hit. Not just a hit, but an all-time classic American sitcom. The show ran for 6 years and over 230 episodes before being canceled so that the cast could move on to other projects. It aired almost constantly in syndication for decades.
Billingsley found a post-Beaver life to be somewhat difficult. Getting typecast as a beloved mother figure is still getting typecast. She took several years off from acting and made a splash on her return with an iconic and memorable cameo in the 1980 comedy film, Airplane!.
The jive-talking role opened up new opportunities for her and she spent the next decades enjoying guest-starring appearances on a laundry list of hit shows. In addition to new roles, Billingsley also reprised June Cleaver for several movies and reboots of the original Beaver series. She also famously voiced the never-fully-seen Nanny on more than 100 episodes of Jim Henson‘s Muppet Babies cartoon.
In October of 2010, Barbara Billingsley died in her home in Santa Monica, California. She left behind two children from her three marriages as well as millions of television viewers and fans who looked to her as the perfect mother. She was 94.
Burial
Woodlawn Cemetery – Santa Monica, CA
Specific Location
Block 12, Lot 120, Grave A; Walk out into this section from the southeast corner of the mausoleum and look for the black MORTENSEN marker. Barbara is buried just to the west of this family marker.
Leave a Reply