Barbara Billingsley

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Barbara Billingsley

Barbara Billingsley, in a still from Leave It to Beaver
Birth name Barbara Lillian Combes
Born December 22, 1915 (age 91)
Los Angeles, California, USA
Notable roles June Cleaver in Leave It to Beaver

Barbara Billingsley (born Barbara Lillian Combes on December 22, 1915 in Los Angeles, California) is an American actress. Her surname was sometimes mistranscribed as "Billinsley".

She started her career in New York City, appearing in the Broadway play, Straw Hat, and then worked as a fashion model. As an actress on the silver screen, she had usually uncredited roles in major motion picture productions in the 1940s. These roles continued into the first half of the 1950s (The Bad and the Beautiful) and led to lead roles on the sitcoms Professional Father and The Brothers.

She is best known for her role as matriarch June Cleaver on the sitcom Leave It to Beaver. The show ran from 1957 to 1963 and proved to be very lucrative for Billingsley. However, when the show ended, she was typecast as saccharine sweet, and had trouble obtaining acting jobs for years. After a long absence from the public eye, she appeared in the movie Airplane! (1980). She also did the voice of "Nanny" on Muppet Babies from 1984 to 1991.

Billingsley appeared in a Leave It to Beaver reunion movie and in a subsequent revival television series, Still the Beaver. In the 1997 film version of Leave It to Beaver, Billingsley played the character "Aunt Martha". In 2007, Billingsley completed a role on My Name Is Earl.

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She and her first husband, Glenn Billingsley, a successful restaurateur, had two sons, Drew and Glenn, Jr. Since 1974, Drew and Glenn have owned and operated Billingsley's Restaurant in West Los Angeles, in the tradition of their father, and their great uncle, Sherman Billingsley, founder of New York City's very fashionable 1940s-era nightclub, The Stork Club.

Billingsley divorced Glenn Billingsley, but kept his surname professionally, and later married Roy Kellino. After Kellino's death, she married Dr. William Mortenson.

Billingsley is related to actor/producer Peter Billingsley, best known for his starring role as Ralphie in the seasonal classic A Christmas Story, by marriage. First husband Glenn's cousin is Peter's mom, Gail Billingsley.

Today, Billingsley resides in Santa Monica, California. She is a proud grandmother of four.

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