Barbara Billingsley’s Sons Reveal How the ‘Leave It to Beaver’ Star Was Similar to June Cleaver

Barbara Billingsley’s sons teased her. “We would say, ‘You’re stealing money — you’re doing the same thing at work that you do at home and you’re getting paid for it!’” Drew Billingsley told Closer. “She used to dress the same.” Adds brother Glenn, “Mom even wore her pearls around the house!”

She became a cherished mother figure to millions of viewers as June Cleaver, the ideal homemaker of the hit 1957–63 sitcom Leave It to Beaver. When Barbara returned to her real-life home, she wasn’t much different. “We would all have dinner together every night,” Drew told the magazine. In fact, the former fashion model took the TV gig because its steady schedule enabled her to spend time with her kids.

“She wanted a job that would allow her to be part of a family but still do what she wanted, which was act,” Drew said. “I always thought one of the reasons why Mom was so good on the show was because she was so happy.” That happiness was contagious and enduring: In a 2013 Harris Poll, the star was voted as the mom that Americans would have most liked to be their own mother.

Barbara developed a close relationship with Jerry Mathers and Tony Dow, who played her sons, Beaver and Wally. “She said it was almost like having two families,” Drew continued. “Tony and Jerry would ask her advice.”  “She was like a favorite teacher. She taught me a lot about acting. And if anyone on the set was getting too loud, she’d say, ‘OK, settle down, we have to work now,’” remembered Jerry, via Woman’s World.

When Barbara wasn’t working, her hobbies would’ve met with June’s approval. “She liked working in the yard, she was a great cook, she read a lot and did a little bit of painting,” Glenn told Closer. “And she always exercised — she believed very strongly in it.”

Her marital history wasn’t as successful as June’s unbreakable bond with Ward (Hugh Beaumont), however. The boys came from her first marriage to restaurateur Glenn Billingsley from 1941 to 1947. “Unfortunately, they divorced when I was 2,” says Glenn. “But he was a good father.” Barbara remarried twice, to director Roy Kellino and Dr. William S. Mortensen, and stayed with them until their deaths in 1956 and 1981, respectively.

Barbara stayed active into her 80s, acting in films like Airplane! and Back to the Beach and guesting on such TV comedies as Roseanne and Murphy Brown. She even had a cameo as Aunt Martha in the 1997 big-screen reboot of Leave It to Beaver. (June was played by Northern Exposure’s Janine Turner.)

Before she died at 94 in 2010, Barbara had amassed many decades of warm memories to cherish. “She often said, ‘I couldn’t have planned out a better life than the one I had,’” remembers Drew. “That’s better than most of us get!”