* I Cheated the Law (1949)
* Pretty Baby (1950)
* Woman in the Dark (1952)
* Invitation (1952)
* Invaders From Mars (1953)
* The Lady Wants Mink (1953)
* Airplane! (1980)
* Leave It to Beaver (1997)
* Secret Santa (2003)
Television
Notable television shows
* Schlitz Playhouse of Stars (1953-1955)
* Four Star Playhouse (1953-1955)
* The Brothers (1956)
* Make Room for Daddy (1957)
* Leave It To Beaver (1957-1963)
* The F.B.I. (1971)
* Mork and Mindy (1982)
* Amazing Stories (1985)
* Still the Beaver (1986-1988)
TV Guide, May 13- May 19, 1961
Barbara Billingsley Mortensen, homemaker both on and off television, likes to dress up to her role. To the housewife whose slacks become her uniform Barbara offers this advice: "There are occasions when a homemaker feels and looks better if she's dress up. No matter how hectic things get, try to keep yourself up. We try on Leave It To Beaver - June Cleaver always changes her dress to look fresh when the children come home from school. "A woman managing a home has a career, just as an office worker does. And an attractive career girl give her job more stature."
At right [top right photo], Barbara models an attractive outfit for marketing. The simple sleeveless sheath is of checked woven cotton with drip-dry finish. The dress has a square neckline, a pleat in the back of the skirt. Orlon acrylic sweater is appliquéd in dress material. By Lipson Co. $16.
Dress of Dacron polyester [middle right photo] has button detail and easy pleats falling from the new dropped waistline. by Sue Brett. $18.
Lawn jumpsuit [left photo] $19 is ideal for housework; with long skirt ($11), it becomes a glamorous dinner or evening-at-home outfit. Shoulder are elasticized. by Victor Most. [Bottom right photo] Basic sheath goes from morning to night. Patent leather belt is trimmed with dress material. By Mr. Bert, $13.
Heroes
It would come as no surprise if there were men walking around today with "June" tattooed on their arms instead of "Mom." For millions of viewers June Evelyn Broson Cleaver has grown to become the quintessential American mother. If the Garden of Eden was starting anew as a suburb, June would be the ideal Ever - pretty, tireless wife, mother and homemaker.
To be sure, June considers herself a fulfilled woman according to the most traditionally conservative American view of womanhood: a girl goes to school to find a good provider, gets married, sets up hihome, bears his children and his problems at the sacrifice of any greater ambition of her own. She is the homebody extraordinaire, allowed to fly from the next only long enough to do the family shopping, attend school and church meetings and visit relatives and friends. Even her hobbies are home oriented - like crocheting and making curtains.
Like her husband, June’s childhood days are only sketchily filled in by the scripts. She grew up in East S. Louis, attended boarding school and spent summers with her maiden Aunt Martha. Thus she comes by her very eastern finishing school view of life honestly, striving to carry out proud - though undefined - Broson family traditions. Her greatest honor came at summer camp where she won a blue bathing cap in a swimming meet. Her reading tended toward Little Women and Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall. By her teen years June had arrived in the Mayfield area where she met Ward Cleaver when he was sixteen. They both attended State. He was definitely the best student of the two. She had little work experience, although she types competently and she did volunteer at the USO during World War II.
The kitchen is the central core of June Cleaver’s life. Although a spotless range and oven have replaced the hearth, June still prepares two elaborate hot meals each day, three on weekends with tender loving care. Her coffeepot is ever ready for her husband and there’s milk, cookies, fruit and often cake for her boys when they come home from school.
Barbara Billingsley's Details
Status:
Single
Here for:
Networking, Friends
Orientation:
Straight
Body type:
5' 5" / Slim / Slender
Ethnicity:
White / Caucasian
Zodiac Sign:
Capricorn
Children:
Proud parent
Education:
Some college
Occupation:
Actress
Barbara Billingsley is in your extended network view more
About me:
Barbara Billingsley (born Barbara Lillian Combes on December 22, 1915 in Los Angeles, California) is an American actress. Her professional name comes from the surname of her first husband, Glenn Billingsley. She was sometimes credited as Barbara 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 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! in 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".
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 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.
Who I'd like to meet:
TV Guide, Feb 25 - Mar 3, 1961: An Expert on the Male
Barbara Lillian Combes Billingsley Kellino Mortensen, who as plain Barbara Billingsley has been playing the mother of two sons on ABC's Leave It To Beaver since the series began in 1957, is herself the mother of two sons, Drew, 19..8, and Brud, 16. "At Beaver's age in the series," she says, "both of them were very much like Beaver." (Beaver Cleaver is 12)
And members of the backstage Beaver family point out that Miss Billingsley is a dead ringer for the mild-mannered and soft-spoken June Cleaver, housewife. "Barbara," says co-producer Joseph Connelly, "gives us only one problem. In scenes where she's mad at the boys, she's always coming to us with the script and objecting: 'I don't see why June is so mad over what Beaver's don. I certainly wouldn't be.'"
As a result, Connelly says, many of Beaver's crimes have been rewritten into something really heinous, like lying about them, in order to give his mother a strong motive for blowing her ladylike stack.
A dignified and easygoing blonde of 38, Barbara is a Los Angeles girl who has always been more concerned with marriage and family than with her career. With a year at Los Angeles Junior college behind her she traveled to Broadway by gravitation when "Straw Hat," a review in which she was appearing, attracted enough attention to send it to the big time. when, after five days, the show closed, she "decided new York was more fun than college," took an apartment on 57th Street and when to work as a $60-a-week fashion model.
The Billingsley in her stage name derives from her marriage, in 1941, to Glenn Billingsley, a restaurant operator and nephew of another follow in the same business. Divorced in 1947, the Billingsley had first live for 18 months in Key West, Fla., where their older son was born, then for a year in Los Angeles as manager of the Mocambo night club. Barbara picked up where "Straw Hat" left off after the birth of her other son in California, chiefly playing "Tom Conway's wife in more B-picture detective stories than I care to count up."
A career in more than 100 filmed TV shows and live Hollywood dramas began with her marriage in 1953 to the late Roy Kellino. (Since June 28, 1959, Barbara has been the wife of Dr. William Mortensen, a Santa Monica physician who had been a widower and an old friend of the Kellinos.) Kellino was an English-born director whom Dick Powell, David Niven and Charles Boyer kept busy on Four Star Playhouse. Mrs. Kellino starred with all of Four Star';s stars, sometimes directed by her husband, worked on other filmed anthology shows and, in 1955, played the mother of two children on a CBS live series, Professional Father.
At present Barbara is under the slight misapprehension that sympathy over Kellino's' sudden death (of a heart attack in 1956) won her the role of the mother on Leave It To Beaver. "Roy died on a Saturday, while we were gardening," she says. "The Thursday before, I was up for the part of the mother in a series Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher were working on. Then Roy died, and nothing came of that series. But two months later, when they started on Leave It To Beaver, they remembered me and asked me to read for the part of June. I've always thought that they felt sorry for me."
Connelly and Mosher, however, deny they were carried away by sentiment. "We remembered her," Mosher says, "because she fit the part."
I want to thank you for allowing me as Red Skelton to be a part of your myspace life.
Fall is here and the holidays are approaching. They can be stressful so I'm giving you a gift of laughter.
If by chance you are in Las Vegas or plan on visiting us this season, I would be honored to meet you.
I perform every Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night 9pm inside the Royal Resort Hotel showroom located 99 Convention Center Drive (basically corner of Las Vegas Blvd and Convention Center Drive)
The name of the show is Larry G Jones ~Man of 1002 Voices Show.
I'm the opening act as Red Skelton. If you get the chance please stop by and say HI. If you want to see the show here is a discount code for you.
Just stopping by to say HI!
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When you get a chance, check out the “COOLEST SHOW IN TOWN”
Starring Larry G Jones~Singing Impressionist and Brian Hoffman as 'Red Skelton'
We have a blast every Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Larry G Jones was just named 'Entertainer of the Year' in Las Vegas.
We have a 'COOL DEAL' for you.
Get General Admission and VIP preferred seating tickets at half price by using discount code MYSPACE (all Caps)
Visit http://www.LasVegasActs.com/showvideos.html to see VIDEOS!
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Next time you are in the neighborhood, check out the funniest show in Las Vegas!
I wish you continued success in all you do.
"Goodnight now and may God bless"
Brian Hoffman~Red Skelton Impersonator
thank you for the add. barbara billingsley played my all time fave tv mom. she was a great actress. her real life as nothing like june cleaver. thanks again.
Barbara Billingsley Mortensen, homemaker both on and off television, likes to dress up to her role. To the housewife whose slacks become her uniform Barbara offers this advice: "There are occasions when a homemaker feels and looks better if she's dress up. No matter how hectic things get, try to keep yourself up. We try on Leave It To Beaver - June Cleaver always changes her dress to look fresh when the children come home from school. "A woman managing a home has a career, just as an office worker does. And an attractive career girl give her job more stature."
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