June Cleaver

Barbara Billingsley...Dies at 94

The last name was familiar. Wasn't Sherman Billingsley the guy who ran the legendary Stork Club in New York? Watering hole for the rich and famous?

Turns out there was a connection to the name, but quite unexpectedly, there was also a connection to TV's June Cleaver, the mom on the show 'Leave It to Beaver,' a 50s, 60s family sitcom that oozed goodness and understanding, and created envy, at least amongst those who didn't see their own households as such nice places to be.

It turns out that Barbara's first of three husbands was a nephew to Sherman. Barbara was born in California in 1915. Prohibtiion started in 1920, and lasted unti 1933. No famous saloon in New York wasn't also a speakeasy during Prohibition.

Growing up I used to watch 'Leave It to Beaver' when the TV wasn't being hauled away down the front steps to "the shop." for inevitable repair. "The shop" were two words no kid wanted to hear the TV repairman tell his mother, who, through no real fault of her own, didn't act, look, or talk at all like June Cleaver. I think I'd have been the first to know, if she did.

I was closer in age to Beaver than Wally when I watched the show. I can't remember the content of a single episode. I do remember always thinking that Wally had too much to worry about, though. Like girls, AND trigonometry. I really wasn't in any hurry to grow older. It looked tough.

There's a great line in the movie Casablanca where Claude Rains as Inspector Renault tells Rick, Humphrey Boagart, that he likes to think he killed a man. It's the romantic in him.

Now, as an adult reading about an adult who I saw as kid, I like to think Barbara was quite the item, flirting with stage hands, smoking and drinking in the Stork Club, and in general, having a life that wasn't really what she had on TV. I like to think we could have dated. It's the romantic in me.

She did remain true to the character and wouldn't take parts that made fun of June or the 50s era sitcoms. And just think, if our own TV didn't leave the house so often, I might have done a better job at remembering an episode in June Cleaver's life.

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