Barbara Billingsley

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Barbara Billingsley , nee Barbara Lillian Combes, (born December 22, 1915 in Los Angeles , California - † October 16, 2010 in Santa Monica , California) was an American actress .

Life

Barbara Billingsley, originally Barbara Lillian Combes, was born as the youngest daughter of patrol officer Robert Collyer Combes and his wife Lillian Agnes McLaughlin. Billingsley had an older sister, Elizabeth. After her parents divorced, she and her sister grew up with their single father. Her father remarried in 1925 and later became the district's deputy chief of police.

Billingsley attended George Washington High School, now Washington Preparatory High School, in Los Angeles, which she graduated from in 1934. Even in high school, Billingsley took part in various school performances. She then attended Los Angeles Junior College for a year and then decided to become an actress.

After an audition on Broadway was in 1937 for the role of Laureen Lee in the comedy Straw Hat by John Unkelbach involved. The piece ran for a total of five years. She then worked on a touring production of the play Accidentally Yours at the side of Billie Burke as her niece, but then gave up her career as a stage actress. Billingsley then worked as a model for fashion shoots and as a model at fashion shows for the American designer Hattie Carnegie, among others .

In 1945 she was signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . Billingsley played only supporting roles until the late 1940s, in which she mostly only had a single scene and was often not even mentioned in the credits. Billingsley later played somewhat larger supporting roles, including in the comedy Three Guys Named Mike (1951) alongside Jane Wyman , in the Western Apache Battle of the Black Mountains (1951), in the thriller Conspiracy in the Night Express (1951, as a boy) Mother who met Abraham Lincoln before his murder), in the drama Borrowed Happiness (1952, as secretary to Louis Calhern ) and in the science fiction film Invasion of Mars (1953, again as secretary). Directed by Vincente Minnelli , she played in 1952 in his melodrama City of Illusions . Her only leading role in a movie she had in the role of Helen Meredith as the mother of a teenager in the drama The Careless Years (1957).

Billingsley has also appeared on television since the 1950s . She first played guest and episode roles in various television series . Her first continuous series role was the role of Helen Wilson, the wife of child psychologist Dr. Thomas Wilson in the TV series Professional Father (1955). In the 1957 television series The Brothers , she played the girlfriend of Gale Gordon for a few episodes .

She achieved her greatest success with the mother role of June Cleaver, the typical American housewife and mother who, always perfectly styled, stays at home and supports her family, in the American sitcom You have to be grown up (Leave It To Beaver) . She played this role first from 1957 to 1963. She embodied this role, now as a widow and grandmother, later in the television film Still The Beaver (1983), the prelude to the follow-up series, and in the continuation of the series The New Leave It To Beaver (1983-1989). In the film version Beaver is going on! (1997) she took on the role of Aunt Martha.

After the end of adulthood one would have to be , Billingsley withdrew largely into private life. She was only seen in two episodes of the FBI crime series in 1971 . In 1980 she resumed her acting career. She played a guest role in the cult comedy The Incredible Journey in a Crazy Plane . As a white passenger who Jive understands, she translated the ghetto slang of a black passenger for the flight crew.

In addition to her roles in the various Beaver revivals, Billingsley continued to take on television roles. In 1995 she starred in the series Roseanne . In 2003 she had her last film role on the side of Jennie Garth in the television comedy Secret Santa ; Billingsley played Miss Ruthie, a retirement home resident.

Private

Billingsley first appeared as an actress under the name Barbara Combes until 1941. She was married three times in total. After her first marriage to restaurateur Glenn Billingsley Sr., she performed under the name Barbara Billingsley. The marriage resulted in two sons. The marriage ended in divorce in the late 1940s. In his second marriage, Billingsley was married to the film director Roy Kellino (1912-1956) from 1953 until his death . In 1959 she married the doctor William S. Mortensen, her third marriage ; he died in 1981. Billingsley died of polymyalgia in her Santa Monica home .

Filmography (selection)

  • 1946: Dreams Come True (Two Sisters from Boston)
  • 1946: The Unknown Beloved (Undercurrent)
  • 1946: Secret Heart
  • 1947: Endless is the prairie (The Sea of ​​Grass)
  • 1948: Love at second sight (Living in a Big Way)
  • 1951: The Guys Named Mike
  • 1951: Apache battle on the black mountains (Oh! Susanna)
  • 1951: Conspiracy in the Night Express ( The Tall Target )
  • 1952: Borrowed Happiness ( Invitation )
  • 1952: City of Illusions ( The Bad And The Beautiful )
  • 1953: Invasion from Mars ( Invaders from Mars )
  • 1954: Day of Triumph
  • 1955: Professional Father (TV series)
  • 1956–1957: The Brothers (TV series)
  • 1957: The Careless Years
  • 1957–1963: One should be an adult ( Leave It To Beaver )
  • 1971: FBI ( The FBI , TV series)
  • 1980: The Incredible Journey in a Crazy Plane ( Airplane! )
  • 1983: Still The Beaver (TV movie)
  • 1983–1989: The New Leave It To Beaver (TV series)
  • 1988: The Witches of Bay Cove (TV movie)
  • 1995: Roseanne
  • 2003: Secret Santa (TV movie)

Web links

Commons : Barbara Billingsley  - Collection of Images
personal data
SURNAME Billingsley, Barbara
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Combes, Barbara; Combes, Barbara Lillian (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH December 22, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , California , United States
DATE OF DEATH October 16, 2010
Place of death Santa Monica , California , United States