Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke was an American actress who was famous on Broadway and radio, and in silent and sound films.
36 Facts About Billie Burke
2.
Billie Burke was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Emily Kilbourne in Merrily We Live.
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Billie Burke is remembered for her appearances in the Topper film series.
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Billie Burke was married to Broadway producer and impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.
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Billie Burke was born in Washington, DC, the daughter of Blanche and her second husband, William "Billy" Ethelbert Billie Burke.
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Billie Burke's family settled in London where she attended plays in the West End.
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Billie Burke began acting on stage in 1903, making her debut in London in The School Girl.
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Billie Burke eventually returned to America to star in Broadway musical comedies.
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Billie Burke went on to play leads on Broadway in Mrs Dot, Suzanne, The Runaway, The "Mind-the-Paint" Girl, and The Land of Promise from 1910 to 1913, along with a supporting role in the revival of Sir Arthur Wing Pinero's The Amazons.
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Billie Burke was signed for the movies and made her cinematic debut in the title role of Peggy.
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Billie Burke's success was phenomenal, and she was earning what was reputedly the highest salary of any film actress up to that time.
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Billie Burke followed her first feature with the 15-part serial Gloria's Romance, another popular and critically acclaimed vehicle.
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Billie Burke starred primarily in provocative society dramas and comedies, similar in theme to The "Mind-the-Paint" Girl, her most successful American play.
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Billie Burke made her Hollywood comeback in 1932, when she starred as Margaret Fairfield in A Bill of Divorcement, which was directed by George Cukor.
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Billie Burke played Katharine Hepburn's mother in the film, which was Hepburn's debut.
16.
In 1933, Billie Burke was cast as Millicent Jordan, a scatterbrained high-society woman hosting a dinner party in the comedy Dinner at Eight, directed by George Cukor, co-starring with Lionel Barrymore, Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Jean Harlow and Wallace Beery.
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Billie Burke subsequently starred in many comedies and musicals, typecast as a ditzy, feather-brained upper-class matron, with her high-pitched voice.
18.
William Powell played Ziegfeld and Myrna Loy played Billie Burke; this infuriated Billie Burke, who was under contract to the studio and believed she could have played herself MGM considered her too old to cast in the part of her younger self.
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Billie Burke appeared in Topper in which she played the twittering and puritanical Clara Topper, who is married to a man haunted by socialite ghosts played by Cary Grant and Constance Bennett.
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Billie Burke returned to the role in the film's sequels.
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Billie Burke had previously worked with Garland in the film Everybody Sing, in which she played Judy's histrionically hysterical actress-mother.
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Billie Burke portrayed Mrs Ernest Stanley in the 1942 film The Man Who Came to Dinner.
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Billie Burke wrote two autobiographies, both with Cameron Shipp, With a Feather on My Nose and With Powder on My Nose.
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On CBS Radio, The Billie Burke Show was heard on Saturday mornings from April 3,1943, until September 21,1946.
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Billie Burke worked often in early television, appearing in the short-lived sitcom Doc Corkle.
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Billie Burke was a guest star on several TV and radio series, including Duffy's Tavern.
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On television, Burke starred in her own talk show, At Home With Billie Burke, which ran on the DuMont Television Network from June 1951 through the spring of 1952.
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Billie Burke was one of the first female talk show hosts, after the hostesses of the earlier DuMont series And Everything Nice and Fashions on Parade which both included some talk show segments.
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Billie Burke starred in an adaptation of Dr Heidegger's Experiment on the TV version of Lights Out on November 20,1950.
30.
Billie Burke tried to make a comeback on the New York stage.
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Billie Burke appeared in several plays in California, although her mind became clouded, and she had trouble remembering lines.
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Billie Burke made her final screen appearance in Sergeant Rutledge, a western directed by John Ford.
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In 1921, Billie Burke retired to raise her daughter Patricia, but resumed work after the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
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In 1932, Billie Burke moved from New York to Beverly Hills, California, after the death of Ziegfeld.
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Billie Burke died in Los Angeles of natural causes on May 14,1970, at the age of 85, and she was interred beside Ziegfeld at Kensico Cemetery, Valhalla, Westchester County, New York.
36.
For many years, Billie Burke's framed photo was displayed above the exit staircase at New York City's Ziegfeld Theatre, but it disappeared after renovations.