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Barbara Billingsley R.I.P

davalvideo said:
Had a crush on her when I was 9 (1959). I know, most kids my age would have been eying Annette Funicello.
Click to expand...

No, I totally get that! She was motherly, but beyond that she was funny, intelligent, and yes even sexy.(lucky Ward!) And she had this wry sense of humor that you have to dig a little deeper for, but it was there in the Beaver episodes. I'm certain that there was good writing on the show, but she interpreted those lines very nicely.
 
Ah, yes....she could spend the day in a lovely dress, pearls, high heels, and perfectly coiffed hair; shopping, running errands, cleaning house, cooking dinner.....and still look fabulous when Ward came home. Only in Sitcomland. ;D

R.I.P., Ms. Billingsley. You were the pretty face of an idyllic domestic lifestyle that never really existed, but should have. ;)
 
And she has earned the respect over so many years of viewers, her coolness factor was confirmed in Airplane,
and continues to this day.

I have used Barbara Billingsley clips (quips) on my AM for quite a while now.

RIP Barbara
 
A really classy lady who was a 'mom' to us all.

Interesting thing that I gleaned from her obituary: by the time she was in Leave it to Beaver, Ms. Billingsley was already in her 40s! I found that to be amazing because - in general - people tended to look older back then than they do now. And she looked like she was only about 32 in those first episodes and mid 30s in the later ones when she was actually a good 10 years older than that in real life.

She was a very talented - and beautiful - woman.
 
Sorry to hear of her passing, but we celebrate her long and enriching life.
 
I was thinking about this today...To really understand how TV and culture changed in the 1960's, "Leave It To Beaver" and "All In The Family" were separated by only eight years. To me, that is just amazing. (Last episode of Beaver 1963, first episode of Family 1971.)
 
I think this reflects the changes in society between 1963
and 1971. Many "Beaver" fans feel that show ended at the
right time; JFK was assassinated two months after "Beaver"
left ABC, and during the next few years there would be more
assassinations, Vietnam (would Wally have dodged the draft?),
hippies (would Beaver sport long hair and smoke pot?), and,
increasingly, people looked at "Beaver" as reflective of a world
gone by, if it ever even existed (its real popularity came in the
'70s, when its fans, now adults and parents, looked back on it
and its era with nostalgia). By 1971 people were looking for sitcoms
with more connection to the real world, and "All In The Family" fit
the bill perfectly. Also remember that the fantasy sitcoms were
running out of gas by the early '70s; "I Dream Of Jeannie" ended in
1970; "Bewitched" in 1972 after three years of declining ratings (OK,
maybe Dick Sargent in place of Dick York had something to do with
it, too).
 
bpatrick said:
I think this reflects the changes in society between 1963
and 1971. Many "Beaver" fans feel that show ended at the
right time; JFK was assassinated two months after "Beaver"
left ABC, and during the next few years there would be more
assassinations, Vietnam (would Wally have dodged the draft?),
hippies (would Beaver sport long hair and smoke pot?), and,
increasingly, people looked at "Beaver" as reflective of a world
gone by, if it ever even existed (its real popularity came in the
'70s, when its fans, now adults and parents, looked back on it
and its era with nostalgia). By 1971 people were looking for sitcoms
with more connection to the real world, and "All In The Family" fit
the bill perfectly. Also remember that the fantasy sitcoms were
running out of gas by the early '70s; "I Dream Of Jeannie" ended in
1970; "Bewitched" in 1972 after three years of declining ratings (OK,
maybe Dick Sargent in place of Dick York had something to do with
it, too).
Click to expand...

Well said. I seem to recall that there was a fair amount of controversy around the premiere of All in the Family. CBS decided to take the risk, and go for it. It must have brought about some changes in the network's Standards and Practices department.

And CBS was still touchy about their other comedies in the early 70s. I've heard that Mary Richards was originally supposed to be a divorcee, but the network decided it was safer to make her back story a break-up with her boyfriend.
 
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