{"id":89,"date":"2010-10-16T22:16:06","date_gmt":"2010-10-16T22:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/barbara-billingsley.html"},"modified":"2010-10-16T22:16:06","modified_gmt":"2010-10-16T22:16:06","slug":"barbara-billingsley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/barbara-billingsley.html","title":{"rendered":"The legacy of Barbara Billingsley (aka June Cleaver)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"article_body\">\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/news\/leave-it-beaver-mom-barbara-30888\">Barbara Billingsley<\/a>, aka June Cleaver (wife of Ward and mother of&nbsp; Wally and &#8220;Beaver&#8221;) in the classic family TV sitcom <i><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Leave_It_to_Beaver\">Leave it to Beaver<\/a> <\/i>has died at the age of 94.<\/p>\n<p>The show debuted in 1957 and ran until 1963 (ending just months before the assassination of JFK). To this day it remains iconic of an uncynical era in which parents were actually presented as wiser than their kids and TV shows dared to impart simple moral lessons regarding such things as kindness and personal responsibility. <\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s Billingsley recalling those days in an interview for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PYS-lUmkx1o&amp;feature=fvst\">Archive of American Television<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>While <i>Leave it to Beaver<\/i> is probably one of the most spoofed shows in TV history, the truth is it was actually very well written, expressed simple truths in ways that children (and adults) could understand and was never quite as unrealistic as it is often made out to be.<\/p>\n<p>It was, for instance, no less realistic than <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Married..._with_Children\">Married&#8230;with Children<\/a>, another iconic series built around a nuclear family (albeit with a far different sensibility). Which show we find more realistic depends both on our individual family experiences and the portion of the prism through which we choose to look at life.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p><i>Leave it to Beaver <\/i>chose to present life from the positive and optimistic side of the prism &#8212; providing viewers an example of a caring, functional family rather than a dysfunctional one. We learn by example. <\/p>\n<p>And Barbara Billingsley played her role as a loving, intelligent wife and mother with class and distinction. Her&nbsp; place in TV history is well-earned.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Barbara Billingsley, aka June Cleaver (wife of Ward and mother of&nbsp; Wally and &#8220;Beaver&#8221;) in the classic family TV sitcom Leave it to Beaver has died at the age of 94. The show debuted in 1957 and ran until 1963 (ending just months before the assassination of JFK). To this day it remains iconic of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-television"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The legacy of Barbara Billingsley (aka June Cleaver) - Catholics Media and Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/barbara-billingsley.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The legacy of Barbara Billingsley (aka June Cleaver) - Catholics Media and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Barbara Billingsley, aka June Cleaver (wife of Ward and mother of&nbsp; Wally and &#8220;Beaver&#8221;) in the classic family TV sitcom Leave it to Beaver has died at the age of 94. The show debuted in 1957 and ran until 1963 (ending just months before the assassination of JFK). To this day it remains iconic of&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/barbara-billingsley.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholics Media and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-16T22:16:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John W. Kennedy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The legacy of Barbara Billingsley (aka June Cleaver) - Catholics Media and Culture","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/barbara-billingsley.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The legacy of Barbara Billingsley (aka June Cleaver) - Catholics Media and Culture","og_description":"Barbara Billingsley, aka June Cleaver (wife of Ward and mother of&nbsp; Wally and &#8220;Beaver&#8221;) in the classic family TV sitcom Leave it to Beaver has died at the age of 94. The show debuted in 1957 and ran until 1963 (ending just months before the assassination of JFK). To this day it remains iconic of&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/barbara-billingsley.html","og_site_name":"Catholics Media and Culture","article_published_time":"2010-10-16T22:16:06+00:00","author":"John W. Kennedy","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/barbara-billingsley.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/barbara-billingsley.html","name":"The legacy of Barbara Billingsley (aka June Cleaver) - Catholics Media and Culture","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-10-16T22:16:06+00:00","dateModified":"2010-10-16T22:16:06+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/e5d5ef9caeb6b01bcbf08ca6de6591c2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/barbara-billingsley.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/barbara-billingsley.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/10\/barbara-billingsley.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The legacy of Barbara Billingsley (aka June Cleaver)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/","name":"Catholics Media and Culture","description":"Catholic Church News and More","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/e5d5ef9caeb6b01bcbf08ca6de6591c2","name":"John W. Kennedy","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d80\/d801bc09698c0995d9ae402b4b55ab61x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d80\/d801bc09698c0995d9ae402b4b55ab61x96.jpg","caption":"John W. Kennedy"},"description":"John W. Kennedy is the founder and Dir. of Development of The Creative Universe Entertainment\u2122, a media consultation and development company focusing on the creation, development and support of high-quality mainstream entertainment that upholds positive timeless values, including trust in God. Current projects include \"Bryant Park\" (an uplifting romantic-comedy) and \"Photo Finish\" (an award-winning sci-fi TV pilot). He has written over 100 children's novels based on episodes of the Cartoon Network series \"Ben 10\", \"Ben 10: Alien Force\", \"Ben 10: Ultimate Alien\", \"Ben 10: Omniverse\" and \"Generator Rex\" among others. He also writes Beliefnet\u2019s \"Faith, Media &amp; Culture\" blog. Previously, he has produced successful news and talk programming for CNN, Fox News, Pax TV and SiriusXM. Specialties: Script Writing, Movie\/TV Novelizations &amp; Adaptations, TV Content Creation and Development, Creative Consultation, Producing and Booking News and Talk shows. He can be reached for writing, producing and consulting services at 516-640-1182.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/author\/jkennedy"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}