Barbara Billingsley (December 22, 1915 – October 16, 2010) was an American film, television, voice and stage actress. She gained prominence in the 1950s movie The Careless Years, acting opposite Natalie Trundy, followed by her best–known role, that of June Cleaver on the television series Leave It to Beaver (1957–1963) and its sequel Still the Beaver (1985–1988, retitled in season two as The New Leave It to Beaver).
Billingsley was born Barbara Lillian Combes in Los Angeles, in 1915, the youngest child of patrolman Robert Collyer Combes (1891–1950) and his first wife, the former Lillian Agnes McLaughlin. She had one elder sibling, Elizabeth (1911–1992). Her parents divorced sometime before her fourth birthday, and her father, who later became an assistant chief of police, remarried. After her divorce, Lillian Combes went to work as a foreman at a knitting mill.
Billingsley fell in love with drama in the second grade, and during her years at George Washington High School in Los Angeles (now Washington Preparatory High School), she performed in all the school plays. She was voted "Class Queen", and graduated from George Washington in 1934.
She used the name Barbara Combes until 1941.
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