[Vision2020] Barbara Billingsley Dies at 94

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (October 17, 2010) Spokesman-Review.

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Mom on ‘Leave It to Beaver’ dies at 94
She embraced idealized family; pearls had purpose

LOS ANGELES – Barbara Billingsley, who played June Cleaver, the
quintessential 1950s sitcom mom on “Leave It to Beaver,” and later did a
memorable send-up of her white-bread image playing the “jive-talking”
passenger in the hit comedy “Airplane!” has died. She was 94.

Billingsley, who played small parts in B movies and appeared on television
before achieving sitcom immortality, died Saturday at her home in Santa
Monica, Calif., of the rheumatoid disorder polymyalgia.

“Ward, I’m worried about the Beaver,” Billingsley’s June would say to her
TV husband, played by Hugh Beaumont, on “Leave It to Beaver.”

The gentle-humored series, which viewed life from a kid’s point of view
and ran from 1957 to 1963 – on CBS before moving to ABC in fall 1958 –
featured Jerry Mathers as Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver and Tony Dow as his
older brother, Wally.

As June Cleaver, Billingsley was the personification of an Eisenhower-era
stay-at-home mom – at least one residing in fictional Mayfield, USA: a
mild-mannered, perfectly coiffed housewife who typically wore dresses,
high heels and a strand of white pearls even while vacuuming or baking
cookies for her boys.

“She was the ideal mother,” Billingsley said of her character in 1997 in
TV Guide. “Some people think she was weakish, but I don’t. She was the
love in that family. She set a good example for what a wife could be. I
had two boys at home when I did the show. I think the character became
kind of like me and vice versa. I’ve never known where one started and
where one stopped.”

As for the idealized TV family on “Leave It to Beaver,” which continues in
reruns on cable more than 50 years after its debut, Billingsley had her
own explanation for the Cleavers’ enduring appeal.

“Good grief,” she told TV Guide, “I think everybody would like a family
like that. Wouldn’t it be nice if you came home from school and there was
Mom standing there with her little apron and cookies waiting?”

As for her trademark white-pearl necklace, Billingsley said in 2003 that
she wore it “because I have a big hollow in my neck” and the necklace
covered the spot perfectly.

After “Leave It to Beaver” ended in 1963, Billingsley made occasional TV
guest appearances. But she primarily maintained a low public profile with
her third husband, Dr. William Mortensen, whom she had married in 1959.

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Barbara Billingsley

http://media.spokesman.com/photos/2010/10/17/billingsley1017_t620.jpg

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As a kid I grew up watching "Leave it to Beaver".

Although "Leave it to Beaver" did have numerous chauvenistic moments, such
as . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq_9wu-KjTk

Sometimes it took a mother's touch to get things done . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcwLGrSDNVk

Rest well, Barbara.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Stewardess, I speak jive."

- Barbara Billingsley in "Airplane"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpnHl8aXZpM