Earlier this week I was mentioning some movies that are currently on Netflix -- add to the list,
Smokey and the Bandit
and
Psycho.
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a Capsule about Billie Burke
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"Are you a good witch? Or a bad witch?"
"Click your heels together three times..."
"You have no power here! Begone, before somebody drops a house on you!"
Growing up watching The Wizard of Oz once a year on television, we all heard Glinda, the Good Witch of the North say these iconic lines. We can hear them without having the movie playing -- they are imprinted on our Memories.
The actress playing Glinda was Billie Burke.
She also appeared in
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1942)
Father of the Bride (1950)
Father's Little Dividend (1951)
Dinner at Eight (1933)
These movies are highlights, and favorites of mine -- however, Billie Burke worked a lot, over the course of a long career,
on Broadway
on radio
in silent films
and in sound films.
Her list of credits is quite extensive.
She was offered the part of Aunt Pittypat in Gone With the Wind, but she declined it.
Billie Burke also wrote a couple of books: an autobiography titled With A Feather On My Nose is still in print, and available on Kindle from Amazon.
She was born August 7, 1884 in Washington, D.C., and died May 14, 1970 in Los Angeles.
Her lilting, trembly voice was a memorable characteristic, along with her "Broadway British" accent.
Her father was born in Knox County, Ohio. His career was being a singing clown in circuses. (Apparently back then it was a "one-ring" circus, and there was more singing, and wisecracking with the audience. Kind of like vaudeville...)
Billie Burke's full name was
Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke.
Her first acting job was on-stage in London's West End (like our NYC Broadway) in a play called The School Girl, in 1903.
Her final screen appearance was in Sergeant Rutledge (1960), a western directed by John Ford.
----------------- [excerpt from With A Feather On My Nose] -------------------
On one occasion when it was necessary for Father to travel all over Europe, Mother went with him and left me for almost two years to continue my education in London. I stayed at the home of the Beatty Kingstons.
Mr. Kingston had been music critic of the London Times, and it was in this home that I had my first real introduction to British family life.
There is a thing about the English that people of no other nationality seem able to manage, and it is this: the British set the most formal standards for their living but themselves are able to toss them aside and achieve a mixture of formality and laissez faire which baffles and bewilders everybody else.
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