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`Beaver' mother a stay-at-home mom herself after series ended
Mark Pattison
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WASHINGTON (CNS) — Barbara Billingsley, a television icon after having starred as
pearls-wearing homemaker June Cleaver for six seasons on "Leave It to Beaver," is not only a
real-life mother, but a grandmother 16 times over and great-grandmother 22 times over.
"They're not all mine. I had only two children. The rest are my stepchildren" from her
marriage to widower William Mortensen, a Catholic physician, Billingsley said.
Billingsley, who turns 81 on Dec. 22, mades a small-screen return in the film "Secret
Santa," which aired last week on NBC. In the movie, she plays a retirement home resident who helps
a frazzled reporter (Jennie Garth) better understand the giving spirit of Christmas.
After "Beaver" went off the air in 1963, Billingsley became a stay-at-home mom, she
told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview from her home in Santa Monica, Calif. Any
typecasting that might have resulted from having portrayed such a definitive character as June Cleaver
faded away.
"I had worked steadily. I was very happy to stay home, and be with my children," she said.
"I know I was being typecast. The part of June Cleaver has been good to me. Had I
worked harder than I did to be a leading actress, it might have hurt," she added.
Life imitated art further during dinnertime at the family home, Billingsley recalled. "I
was married to a doctor. Doctors wore suits," she said. Just as TV husband Ward Cleaver did at the
table, real-life husband Mortenson "would never think of not coming to dinner without his suit and tie."
During her career hiatus, Billingsley said, she discovered charity work. She was a regular
in the Footlighters, a Los Angeles performers' charity whose shows benefited area children's
organizations. She also did the occasional luncheon benefit for St. Monica Parish in Santa Monica and
for Pepperdine University, which is affiliated with the Churches of Christ and located in Malibu,
Calif., where she used to live.
While not a Catholic, "I go a lot of times to Santa Monica and St. Monica's," Billingsley
said. "I like Father Lloyd at St. Monica's," referring to Msgr. Lloyd Torgerson, the pastor.
Most of Billingsley's scenes in "Secret Santa" were shot at a Maryknoll Sisters convent in
the Los Angeles suburb of Monrovia. "I had fun being with the Maryknoll nuns," she said. "I got to
talk with a number of them," as most of the sisters in residence were extras in the movie or helped
out behind the camera.
At her age, Billingsley can be picky about what parts she plays. One thing she was
offered that she was not able to do was make a guest appearance on the CBS sitcom "Becker" after
she tripped over a bale of hay, breaking a finger, spraining an ankle and suffering several bruises.
And "you wouldn't hear me say dirty words," she told CNS. "I do think that TV has gotten
a little overboard."
She hears, like everyone else, the politicians and cultural commentators draw
comparisons between today's society and the life shown by such shows as "Leave It to Beaver" and "The
Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet." "I do think it was very reflective of our society in that day,"
Billingsley said of her show.
The actress reprised her role as June Cleaver for four seasons in the 1980s on a
syndicated series, "The New Leave It to Beaver," originally known as "Still the Beaver." Billingsley also did
an against-type cameo turn as the "jive lady" in the disaster-movie spoof "Airplane!"
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