In Loving Memory - Barbara Billingsley
In Loving Memory - Barbara Billingsley
December 22, 1915 - October 16, 2010
Was an American film, television, voice and stage actress. She gained prominence in the 1950s movie The Careless Years, acting opposite Natalie Trundy, followed by her best–known role, that of June Cleaver on the television series Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963) and its sequel Still the Beaver (also known as The New Leave It to Beaver).
Billingsley was born Barbara Lillian Combes in Los Angeles, California in 1915, the youngest child of Anglo–American parents: patrolman Robert Collyer Combes (1891–1950)and his first wife, the former Lillian Agnes McLaughlin. She had one elder sibling, Elizabeth (1911–1992). Her parents divorced sometime before her fourth birthday, and her father, who later became an assistant chief of police, remarried. After her divorce, Lillian Combes went to work as a forelady at a knitting mill.
Billingsley fell in love with drama in the second grade, and during her years at George Washington High School in Los Angeles (now Washington Preparatory High School), she performed in all the school plays. Billingsley was voted "Class Queen". She graduated from George Washington in 1934.
Until 1941, the actress used the name Barbara Combes. After 1941, when she married her first husband, Glenn Billingsley, she used Barbara Billingsley.

She usually had uncredited roles in major motion picture productions in the 1940s. These roles continued into the first half of the 1950s with The Bad and the Beautiful, Three Guys Named Mike, opposite Jane Wyman, as well as the sci-fi Story Invaders from Mars (1953). Her film experience led to roles on the sitcoms Professional Father (with Stephen Dunne and Beverly Washburn) and The Brothers as well as an appearance with David Niven on his anthology series Four Star Playhouse. In 1957, she guest starred in the episode "That Magazine" of the CBS sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve, starring Howard Duff and Ida Lupino. She co–starred opposite Dean Stockwell and Natalie Trundy in The Careless Years, which was her first and only major role in the movies.
In 1952, Billingsley had her first guest–starring role on an episode of The Abbott and Costello Show. The part led to other roles on The Lone Wolf, two episodes of City Detective, The Pride of the Family, Schlitz Playhouse of Stars, Letter to Loretta, General Electric Summer Originals, You Are There, Cavalcade of America, Panic!, Mr. Adams and Eve, The Love Boat, Silver Spoons, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Mike Hammer, Empty Nest, among many others. She reprised her June Cleaver role three times, in Amazing Stories, Baby Boom and Roseanne. She also guest-starred on an episode of Make Room For Daddy, in which Thomas's character is a widower. The producers reportedly considered casting her as his second wife, but later decided against it, and Marjorie Lord eventually got the
Leave It to Beaver:



After Beaver:
When production of the show ended in 1963, Billingsley had become typecast as saccharine sweet and had trouble obtaining acting jobs for years. She traveled extensively abroad until the late 1970s. After an absence of 17 years from the public eye (other than appearing in two episodes of The F.B.I. in 1971), Billingsley spoofed her wholesome image with a brief appearance in the comedy Airplane! (1980), as a passenger who could "speak jive". She became the voice of Nanny and The Little Train on Muppet Babies from 1984 to 1991.

On October 4, 2007, she and her surviving castmates, Jerry Mathers, Tony Dow, Ken Osmond and Frank Bank, were reunited on ABC's Good Morning America, to celebrate Leave It to Beaver's 50th anniversary. According to interviewer Tom Bergeron, both of Billingsley's co-stars, Mathers and Osmond, currently get financial advice from another co-star, Bank.
On May 6, 2008, hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, she was unable to attend the Academy Leonard Goldenson Theatre in North Hollywood, California, where the Academy of Television Arts & Science presented "A Salute to TV Moms." TV moms who attended the party were: Marjorie Lord, Holland Taylor, Bonnie Franklin, Vicki Lawrence, Tichina Arnold, Cloris Leachman, Doris Roberts, Diahann Carroll, Catherine Hicks and Meredith Baxter.