Biography

Billie Burke was born Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke on August 7, 1884 in Washington, D.C. Her father was the internationally famous clown, Billy Burke, and she would spend most of her early years touring Europe before the family settled in London. In 1903, she appeared on the stage as an actress and came to America in 1907 to star opposite John Drew in "My Wife". A red-haired beauty, she became the toast of Broadway and married promoter Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. in April 1914. Billie was signed in 1915 to make the film Peggy (1916). Of the next 15 films that she made, she would make 14 in New York. In between films, she would return to the stage which was her first love. Her last films were released in 1921 and she went into semi-retirement until their fortune was wiped out in 1929. Billie would return to films to support herself and her husband. Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. would die, a broken man, in 1932.

It was in the comedy drama Dinner at Eight (1933) that Billie would find the character that she would play the rest of her career. It is the hapless, feather-brained lady with the unmistakably high voice who would be more interested in little details than what was at hand. In some films, like Piccadilly Jim (1936), she was obviously too old for the part, but played it to the hilt. Beginning in 1937, she starred in the "Topper" series of films (Topper (1937), Topper Takes a Trip (1938) and Topper Returns (1941)) for producer Hal Roach in which she played Mrs. Topper with her usual fluffy performance. But for most of the people who were raised on television, she will always be remembered as Glinda, the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz (1939). She continued to make films though out the 1940s and started another series with Father of the Bride (1950) and the follow-up Father's Little Dividend (1951).

A real trouper, she next went to television with the television series Doc Corkle (1952). The series was canceled after three weeks due to poor writing. By 1953, her career was slowing down and she would only make three more movies in 1959 and 1960. The best remembered one would be John Ford's Western Sergeant Rutledge (1960). Billie Burke retired for good and lived in Los Angeles, California, where she died at age 85 of natural causes on May 14, 1970.
- IMDb mini biography by: Tony Fontana < tony.fontana@spacebbs.com>

[on why she retired] Acting just wasn't any fun anymore.

Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are a cheese.

[on Hollywood] To survive there, you need the ambition of a Latin-American revolutionary, the ego of a grand opera tenor and the physical stamina of a cow pony.

By the time you get your name up in lights you have worked so hard and so long, and seen so many names go up and down, that all you can think of is: "How can I keep it here?"

[on her husband, Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.] Ziegfeld has been portrayed as a man who pursued women. I have even come across a word which, in regard to him, is not only vulgar but incredibly inaccurate. The word is "Chaser." By all the pink-toed prophets, Flo Ziegfeld was never that! Flo never pursed any woman. He was cool and aloof and difficult. But there were times, more times than I prefer to recall, when he made a woman eager for his approval by a mere look, or a small expression, or by a slight grasp of her elbow, a low mumbling request to dance. That was all the effort he ever had to make. The story of one noted dancing girl about how Flo Ziegfeld used to batter down her door is a confection of sheer poppycock. I tell you: I know better.