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Remembering Barbara Billingsley & Other Iconic TV Moms (& Dads)

Who is your favvorite television mom?

  • Jane Wyatt - Margaret Anderson, Father Knows Best

    Votes: 1 3.6%
  • Harriet Hilliard - Harriet Nelson, The Adventures Of Ozzie & Harriet

    Votes: 2 7.1%
  • Donna Stone - Donna Reed, The Donna Reed Show

    Votes: 2 7.1%
  • June Cleaver - Barbara Billingsley, Leave It To Beaver

    Votes: 10 35.7%
  • Florence Henderson - Carol Brady, Brady Bunch

    Votes: 1 3.6%
  • Shirley Partridge - Shirley Jones, The Partridge Family

    Votes: 1 3.6%
  • Olivia Walton - Michael Learned, The Waltons

    Votes: 4 14.3%
  • Marion Cunningham - Marion Ross, Happy Days

    Votes: 3 10.7%
  • Claire Huxtable - Phylicia Rashad, The Cosby Show

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 4 14.3%

  • Total voters
    28

Prairie Dog

A-List Customer
Messages
338
Location
Gallup, NM
TV fans bid a fond adieu to the lady who many feel is the quintessential television mom, the perfect in every way, Barbara Billingsley (June Cleaver). There are many other TV parents who closely proximated the moral fortitude of Mrs. Cleaver but none in my opinion come close to June & her husband Ward.

In honor of this fine lady, let's mention your favorite TV parents. They need not have been on the same show and married to one another. For ex. Fred McMurray (My Three Sons) & Peg Bundy (Married With Children). Now there's a pair ripe for discusion.

Here's Mrs. Cleaver in her typcial late 50's early 60's period attire complete
with her trademark multi-strand pearls.
tvg_051361_p1.jpg


TV Guide, May 13- May 19, 1961

Barbara Billingsley Mortensen, homemaker both on and off television, likes to dress up to her role. To the housewife whose slacks become her uniform Barbara offers this advice: "There are occasions when a homemaker feels and looks better if she's dress up. No matter how hectic things get, try to keep yourself up. We try on Leave It To Beaver - June Cleaver always changes her dress to look fresh when the children come home from school. "A woman managing a home has a career, just as an office worker does. And an attractive career girl give her job more stature."

At right [top right photo], Barbara models an attractive outfit for marketing. The simple sleeveless sheath is of checked woven cotton with drip-dry finish. The dress has a square neckline, a pleat in the back of the skirt. Orlon acrylic sweater is appliquéd in dress material. By Lipson Co. $16.

Dress of Dacron polyester [middle right photo] has button detail and easy pleats falling from the new dropped waistline. by Sue Brett. $18.

Lawn jumpsuit [left photo] $19 is ideal for housework; with long skirt ($11), it becomes a glamorous dinner or evening-at-home outfit. Shoulder are elasticized. by Victor Most. [Bottom right photo] Basic sheath goes from morning to night. Patent leather belt is trimmed with dress material. By Mr. Bert, $13.
 
Last edited:

dhermann1

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,154
Location
Da Bronx, NY, USA
Dobie's mom. For those of you who don't remember The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, it ran from 1959 to 1963. Dwayne Hickman played an all American teenager with more than his share of existential angst. Bob Denver (in really his greatest role) played his beatnik friend, Maynard G Krebs. Frank Faylan (you'd recognize him from a million roles as either a taxi driver or a heavy) was his long suffering, grocery store owning dad, and Florida Frieus was his darling mom.
Typical exchange:
Dad: "I gotta kill that boy, I just gotta."
Mom: "Now, Herbert!"
 

Paisley

I'll Lock Up
Messages
5,439
Location
Indianapolis
I like the more colorful moms: Mrs. Carlson on WKRP in Cincinnati, Mrs. Dubchek on Third Rock from the Sun, and and Vicki Lawrence as Mama on The Carol Burnett Show. Mama and Eunice remind me of my mom (pre-blood sugar control) and sister Cheryl.
 

Big Man

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,781
Location
Nebo, NC
As a family, we watched all the old shows when they were on. They were all good and set good examples. I'm sure they influenced me in the way I tried to raise my own family. But, of all the "TV moms and dads", John and Olivia Walton have to be, hands down, the best. Not because the setting is in the 1930's (the time we all like), but because the situations they dealt with were "real".

The Walton characters had to make tough decisions, sometimes painful ones, about difficult situations that mirrored real life (both then and today). They met the challenges presented them with faith, love, and compassion. The Waltons TV show was more than just entertainment, it was a series of good lessons for living.
 

Zip Gun Aria

New in Town
Messages
23
Location
East of Tin Pan Alley
Carolyn Jones as Morticia in the original Addams Family. She and Gomez were the healthiest couple I've ever seen on television and therefore the best role models. Even as a little boy, I loved how they looked at each other, and how, even after decades of marriage, Gomez would be driven insane with desire by the merest word or glance from Morticia.

She backed her kids in the outside world without question (as did everyone else in the house) and gave them total support at home in an atmosphere of creative deviation. The allure of arsenic-pale brunettes for three generations is perhaps traceable to her.
 

Prairie Dog

A-List Customer
Messages
338
Location
Gallup, NM
Happy Days No More

Before he was everyone's favorite dad, Mr. C., Howard Cunningham on "Happy Days", the recently deceased Tom Bosley played the fedora clad New York mayor,

Fiorello Laguardia.
Fiorello_La_Guardia.jpg


50471646.jpg
 

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