Barbara Billingsley, June Cleaver on “Leave It to Beaver”, TV mom, dies 94

Barbara Billingsley (December 22, 1915 – October 16, 2010) was an American film, television, voice and character actress of stage, who in her five decades of television came to prominence in the 1950s in the big screen in The Careless Years opposite Natalie Trundy, followed by her best-known role, that of June Cleaver on Leave it to Beaver and its sequel Still the Beaver (also known as The New Leave It to Beaver).

After Leave it to 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.

Death of Barbara Billingsley
Barbara Billingsley died of polymyalgia at her home in Santa Monica, California on October 16, 2010, at the age of 94. She is interred at Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California.

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