LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actress Barbara Billingsley, best known for portraying the quintessential suburban American mom on the 1957-1963 U.S. television comedy "Leave It to Beaver," died on Saturday at age 94.

A family spokeswoman said Billingsley, who also played a memorable cameo as a jive-talking elderly passenger in the 1980 hit comedy film "Airplane!," had been in poor health in recent years and died of rheumatoid disease at her Santa Monica, California, home.

In her signature role as June Cleaver in "Leave It to Beaver," which ran for six seasons, Billingsley personified the ideal middle-class mother and housewife in an era when relatively few American women with children worked outside the home.

Ever patient with the family's rambunctious younger son, nicknamed Beaver, played by Jerry Mathers, and their teenage son, Wally (Tony Dow), June Cleaver was always impeccably stylish, often seen doing household chores in pearls and earrings.

Her pipe-smoking TV husband, Ward Cleaver, was played by Hugh Beaumont, who died in 1982.

The show aired first on CBS, then on ABC. Reruns are still shown widely in syndication almost half a century after the program went off the air.

Billingsley reprised her June Cleaver role in several revivals and TV movie updates of the original show that aired into the 1990s.

She complained at times that her association with the character left her forever typecast in Hollywood as the perfect mother.

But Dow said in an interview with CNN that Billingsley "was very proud of being June Cleaver."

"She was just happy as a lark being recognized as America's mom," he said.

It was an image she used to comic effect in "Airplane!" as an elderly passenger who offers to have a word with two upset African-Americans speaking in heavy street slang on the plane after she politely tells the flight attendant, "Oh, stewardess, I speak jive."

The daughter of a Los Angeles senior police commander, Billingsley appeared on Broadway during World War Two as a chorus girl and also worked as a fashion model before getting her start in TV.

According to the entertainment website IMDB.com, Billingsley was good friends with several other actresses famous for the moms they played on TV, including Florence Henderson ("The Brady Bunch"), June Lockhart ("Lassie," "Lost in Space") and Jane Wyatt ("Father Knows Best").

http://www.kgmi.com/pages/8376950.php?contentType=4&contentId=7000152


This is my favorite sitcom, so it is truly sad. I own the complete series on DVD released by Shout! Factory this year.





Just wanted to point out, Ward never smoked a pipe(or anything on the series), on the other hand Beaver and Larry did.

Ward, Don't you think you were a little had on the Beaver last night?


Who knew? LOL

awwwwww............that hits home for me



RIP Beautiful lady!

As a child of the '50s and 60s, I grew up watching "Leave It To Beaver." I loved it then and love it still. The same is true for the other shows you mentioned, with the exception of "The Brady Bunch," which I didn't find nearly as entertaining.

Some great interviews with Barbara

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO7Vt...eature=channel -Barbara Billingsley on the genesis of "Leave it to Beaver"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYS-l...eature=channel - Barbara Billingsley on "Leave it to Beaver" wholesome stories

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4j1d...eature=channel - Barbara Billingsley on "June Cleaver's" wardrobe and pearls...

I will forever remember her in Airplane speaking "Jive" to the black guys on the plane. Totally classic!

I love June Cleaver like she was my own mother, I love leave it to beaver shows

...and of course, her greatest cameo ever:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKfS3udCCx0

I'm sorry to hear that. May she rest in peace.

wow...another piece of my childhood gone...