European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 12, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Barbara Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont in 1960 on the leave it to Beaver hit television the Days when we could leave it to june Cleaver by Jay Horning St. Petersburg times now that another mothers Day is a month old june Cleaver her make that Barbara Billingsley a can relax again. Ever since the glory Days of leave it to Beaver which left the air in 1963 after six years and 234 shows Barbara Billingsley has had a reputation of being America s a second actually Beaver left the air Only in terms of new episodes. It has never left the nations to screens and is seen in reruns daily on countless stations across America. Beaver was a show that caught the nation s heart. It depicted a simpler Era where mom and Apple pie were the order of the Clay where mom could keep the Kitchen sparkling while wearing pearls and High heels. And dad could find a solution to any problem his sons Beaver and Wally encountered. The show was reincarnated As the movie still the Beaver in 1982, then brought Back to life As a television series again As the new leave it to Beaver with 105 episodes beginning in 1986. A but by that time the family had changed As All families do. Hugh Beaumont who As Ward Cleaver was a Fountain id advice for his sons had died. So it was Beaver in this new incarnation the father of children of his own who was dispensing still hanging on a As the world turns Billingsley said her role in Beaver was sort of an Accident. "1 was going to do another show with buddy Ebsen with the same producers but somehow it did no to materialize. And a couple of months later i got a Call to go to the studio to do this Pilot show and it was Beaver. A a we knew we were making a Good show because it was so Well written. But we had no idea what was ahead. People still talk to me about it and write letters telling me How they watch it today with their children and she says she Hasni to watched an episode in years. A i really should look again because id get a better perspective Quot she said a instead of concentrating on me i could Sec the whole thing but All those reruns mean nothing financially to Billingsley. A they just paid through six runs and that does t take very Billingsley says she just sort of a fell into Quot acting. A fall the Way through grammar school i was in whatever they were doing. And Ever since its the Only thing in be Ever done. In be gone through spells of not working a when i got married and had children. Then i went Back. I guess i had about three careers but All in the same Field. And sometimes i think i almost made a career out of june Billingsley who is 71 and lives in Santa Monica calif., has been divorced once and widowed twice. Her second husband died about the time the new Beaver movie was made. Later when she went Back to work she did her famous Rote in the film air plane in which her Surprise line was a i talk Jive a that was the last movie she did but now she is involved in a play that maybe produced in the next few months. A we had a Reading with an audience recently a she said a and everybody seemed to love it. The title is mrs. Donigan and its a comedy set during world War ii. A i Haven to done theater in a Long time and 1 think 1 should. It la be interesting a scary but fun Quot so Apps Howard nows service by Melinda Henneberger the new York times Helen Wagner has been playing Nancy Hughes on As the world turns since Mamie Eisenhower was a fan. Wagner delivered the shows first line in 1956. Seven years later she was on live television debating whether her soap son should remarry his faithless sex wife when Walter Cronkite broke in to announce that president Kennedy had been shot. The character she created became an icon for a generation of women who understood her mostly futile attempts to run the perfect household and raise the perfect children. Nancy was Donna Reed with real problems in the Days before soap characters travelled through time end aged in espionage on location in exotic climes or almost routinely were reunited with evil twins. Wagner a evolution As Nancy Hughes offers a window on How the soaps have changed technically and socially since Organ music dramatized the shocking discovery that Nancy a grandson had Helen Wagner 1 been caught stealing from his fathers trousers. Her life on the soap has taken her from sparring with a rebellious teen age daughter to coping with a husbands alzheimer so from a time when an illicit affair on the show Drew sacks of hate mail to a current Story line about a woman carrying a baby conceived with an egg donated by her daughter. No one else has lasted so Long in a medium populated mostly by Young actors hoping to join soap alumnae like Meg Ryan and Demi Moore in Hollywood. But for older actors a particularly women a for whom roles Are in Short Supply soaps represent lucrative steady work and attract veterans like Anne Meara and Claire Bloom who Are on the current daytime roster. Wagner who is 75, will her salary but most soap stars make upward of $100,000 a year. A a she a a beloved presence in the soap world a says Jason Bonderoff managing editor of soap opera digest who Calls her a a daytime a answer to Angela before she signed a 13-week contract at the age of 37, Wagner who is from Lubbock Texas had been a Singer and stage actress sometimes working As a Church soloist to pay the rent. In her Early soap Days she received fan mail addressed simply a Nancy Hughes new York City Quot much of it seeking a and offering a household advice. One woman wrote to complain that Nancy had allowed her television daughter Penny to lick her fingers while icing a cake. A disgusting a in the j50s, Nancy epitomized Middle class suburban motherhood and viewers loved her depression Era values she was Well scrubbed but never fashionable fought with her lawyer husband Over things like joining the country club which she considered elitist and chose to vacuum her own rugs thank you because she was uncomfortable supervising hired help. In those Days Nancy spent lots of time trying to run her children a lives but even More time discussing her efforts. Irna Phillips who created the show a always said she wrote for women with half an Eye on the television screen and half on the ironing Board or the cooking a Wagner says a so you Only had to watch Tsvor or three Days a week to stay with the Story Page n sunday june 12, 1994
