The Unusual Circumstances That Made ‘Leave It To Beaver’ A TV Classic

Barbara Billingsley’s Life Was Far From Her Character’s

While Billingsley played a middle-class housewife on TV, her life behind the scenes wasn’t very similar. Obviously, Billingsley herself worked, as an actress, and her home life included raising two kids on her own, after her husband’s death. She was also raised by her single mom, much different from the family structure shown on the television series. She came from one real life to a totally different fantasy life. The only thing that remained the same was raising the two kids, but this time it was not on her own.

This is something tons of actors have to experience as they have to turn into a completely different person once the cameras start rolling. It can often time lead to people acting like their character in real life. That is also how the actors get typecast because they put too much of themselves into the role and play it like it is their real life and viewers can only see them as that character.

But Billingsley’s Character Influenced Her

Although Billingsley faced hardships and experienced a different lifestyle than her character as June Cleaver, the role influenced her and carried over into her personal life. “She was every bit as nurturing, classy, and lovely as ‘June Cleaver,’” said her son Glenn Billingsley, “and we were so proud to share her with the world.” Although she disagreed somewhat, she did explain, “I think what happens is that the writers start writing about you as well as the character they created. So you become sort of all mixed up, I think.”

For actors, you can see it has some effect on their perception of reality. In this case, it affected Billingsley in a positive manner.

Who decided to travel the world after the show ended? Click “Next” to find out.