Silent movie star Billie Burke once said of 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.” She had an almost six-decade career in show business, was the highest-paid star in silent movies for a while, and had a turbulent marriage as the second wife of Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, but she is mostly remembered as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz.
She was born Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke in Washington, D.C. on August 7, 1884. Her father was a singer and clown for the Barnum & Bailey Circus, and she toured with her family in the United States and Europe. The family eventually settled in London, where Burke made her stage debut at age 18 in The School Girl (1903). She went on to appear in other London shows, including The Duchess of Dantzic (1903) and The Blue Moon (1904).
Burke returned to the United States in 1907 and became a star on Broadway. Her first starring role on Broadway was in Love Watches in 1908. She went on to have leading roles in other Broadway musical comedies during this period, including Mrs. Dot, Suzanne, The Runaway, and The “Mind the Paint” Girl. In 1910, she purchased a lavish estate in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, which she named Burkeley Crest.
In 1914, she married theatrical producer Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., and they had one daughter, Patricia, in 1916. Burke started her film career in 1915 with the silent film Peggy. She was an immediate success and became one of the highest-paid actresses of the silent film era. After a period away from Hollywood to focus on the stage and raising her daughter, she returned to film following the 1929 stock market crash, which had a negative impact on her family’s finances.
Her comeback came in 1932 with A Bill of Divorcement, where she played Katharine Hepburn’s mother in Hepburn’s debut film. Her husband, Florenz Ziegfeld, passed away during the production of the film. Burke went on to have a successful career in sound films, often typecast as a “ditzy, feather-brained upper-class matron.” Her most famous role is Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz (1939). She received her only Academy Award nomination for her performance in the film Merrily We Live (1938).
In addition to her film work, Burke also had a career on radio and television. She had her own radio program, The Billie Burke Show, from 1943 to 1946, and a television talk show, At Home with Billie Burke, from 1951 to 1952. She made her final screen appearance in the film Sergeant Rutledge in 1960. Billie Burke died on May 14, 1970, at the age of 85.
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