Barbara Billingsley, a.k.a., ‘Mrs. Cleaver’ on TV’s ‘Leave It To Beaver’: 25 Years After Her Death
Those pearls. That dress. That vacuum cleaner. That living room.
That’s what everyone mostly remembers about Barbara Billingsley’s performance as June Cleaver on TV’s classic family sitcom Leave It To Beaver.
A Closer Look
It’s been twenty-five years since Barbara Billingsley died at 94 in 2010. In her later years, the beloved actress suffered from rheumatoid disorder polymyalgia.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, however, she was the picture of health and the ideal presence of television motherhood (near sainthood!).
As June Cleaver on Leave It To Beaver, Barbara Billingsley presented a loving-kind, yet realistic maternal persona for the time.
Other TV moms of the era like Jane Wyatt’s Margaret Anderson from Father Knows Best or Donna Reed’s Donna Stone on The Donna Reed Show may have proved slightly more lenient with their TV off-spring. But Billingsley’s June didn’t put up with one iota of guff, be it from Jerry Mathers’ little Theodore (a.k.a. Beaver) or his older TV brother Wally, as played by Tony Dow.
While Father, Reed, and to some extent, even My Three Sons (starring Fred MacMurray) offered an adult perspective on the family, Leave It To Beaver stood out from the pack because its stories were told from the child’s perspective.
However, the adult characters on the program, as headed by Billingsly’s June were, as stated, no wallflowers. June, in particular, certainly was an active participant in the raising of Beaver and Wally.
Hugh Beaumont’s Ward Cleaver, her TV husband, might have had the final decision on how to reward or reprimand the Cleaver children, but not before fully discussing his strategy with June, or at least running it by her for her approval.
The Big Picture
During it’s original run, Leave It To Beaver aired on CBS, then on ABC. Reruns still run in syndication around the world.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Barbara Billingsley reprised her role as June Cleaver in several reboots of the original show.
Billingsley periodically felt typecast by her portrayal as June, the ideal mother. However, as Leave It To Beaver co-star Tony Dow once told CNN, Billingsley “was very proud of being June Cleaver.”
“She was just happy as a lark being recognized as America’s mom,” he added.
Billingsley even satirized herself in first Airplane! feature film from 1980. There, she played 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.”
A Lasting Impression
In the end, when push came to shove, like it many times did for little Beaver Cleaver (Jerry Mathers) on Leave It To Beaver, as well as his older brother Wally (Tony Dow), or their father Ward (Hugh Beaumont), their dear mom and wife June — as so gracefully played by Barbara Billingsley, was always there with a tender heart or bit of advice that would somehow heal the situation with love…and comedy.
