The Beav's Mom Dies

Good night, Mrs. Cleaver. And, thank you for a lovely time.

Off the top of your head, do you happen to know if she did any other series, before or after, The Beaver show?

After Beaver
When production of the show ended in 1963, Billingsley had become typecast as saccharine sweet and had trouble obtaining acting jobs for years. She traveled extensively abroad until the late 1970s. After an absence of 17 years from the public eye (other than appearing in two episodes of The F.B.I. in 1971), Billingsley spoofed her wholesome image with a brief appearance in the comedy Airplane! (1980), as a passenger who could "speak jive". She became the voice of Nanny and The Little Train on Muppet Babies from 1984 to 1991.

Billingsley appeared with Robin Williams and Pam Dawber in a 1982 episode of Mork & Mindy. She appeared in a Leave It to Beaver reunion television movie entitled Still the Beaver in 1983. Hugh Beaumont had died the year before of a heart attack, so she played the widow. She also appeared in the subsequent revival of the series, The New Leave It to Beaver (1985–1989). In the 1997 film version of Leave It to Beaver, Billingsley played the character "Aunt Martha". In 1998, she appeared on Candid Camera, along with June Lockhart and Isabel Sanford, as audience members in a spoof seminar on motherhood.

On October 4, 2007, she and her surviving castmates, Jerry Mathers, Tony Dow, Ken Osmond and Frank Bank, were reunited on ABC's Good Morning America, to celebrate Leave It to Beaver's 50th anniversary. According to interviewer Tom Bergeron, both of Billingsley's co-stars, Mathers and Osmond currently get financial advice from another co-star, Bank.

On May 6, 2008, hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, she was unable to attend the Academy Leonard Goldenson Theatre in North Hollywood, California, where the Academy of Television Arts & Science presented "A Salute to TV Moms." TV moms who attended the party were: Marjorie Lord, Holland Taylor, Bonnie Franklin, Vicki Lawrence, Tichina Arnold, Cloris Leachman, Doris Roberts, Diahann Carroll, Catherine Hicks and Meredith Baxter.

Who's gonna translate jive for us now?

Rest peacefully, BB.

Film and TV bio....from Wikipedia:


Filmography

The Argyle Secrets (1948)
Valiant Hombre (1948)
Prejudice (1949)
I Cheated the Law (1949)
Air Hostess (1949)
Shadow on the Wall (1950)
Trial Without Jury (1950)
Pretty Baby (1950)
Three Guys Named Mike (1951)
Inside Straight (1951)
Two-Dollar Bettor (1951)
The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) (uncredited)
Young Man with Ideas (1952)
Woman in the Dark (1952)
The Lady Wants Mink (1953)
The Careless Years (1957)
Airplane! (1980)
Still the Beaver (1983) (TV)
Back to the Beach (1987)
Leave It to Beaver (1997)
Secret Santa (2003) (TV)
[edit]Television
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars (1953–1955)
City Detective episodes "The Corpse on the Carousel" (1953) and "The Glass Thumb" (1954)
Four Star Playhouse (1953–1955)
The Brothers (1956)
Make Room for Daddy (1957)
Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963)
The F.B.I. (1971)
Mork and Mindy (1982)
Amazing Stories (1985)
Jim Henson's Muppet Babies (1984–1990)
The New Leave It to Beaver (1985–1989)
Parker Lewis Can't Lose (1991)
Roseanne (1995)
Mysterious Ways (2000)
My Name Is Earl (2007)

Thanks Ed and Deb! It's nice to see that she continued to have somewhat of a career after that show, albeit spotty.

It's sad when an actor /actress is a one-show wonder, and it's all downhill from there. I'm sure we could all come up with names to fit this category.

She had a long and apparently a good life.

I remember the fun we had with Setanta's topic about what a nice home Mrs. Clever had:

http://able2know.org/topic/160572-1#post-4330174

BBB

I remember that thread. Some funny stuff there.

I did not realize that stewardess was her, in Airplane.

RIP Mrs Cleaver

Does anybody know why the Beaver was called "Beaver?"

When Beaver was born, Wally had trouble pronouncing Theodore, which came out Tweeder, which was altered into Beaver. At least that's the way I remember it.

Makes sense to me. Thanks, Brandon.