Billie Burke: actress and philanthropist
- Rachel Martinez
- 7 hours ago
- 8 min read
The original Glinda the Good Witch had an incredible life
Billie Burke is remembered for her bell-like voice and ethereal poise as the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz (1939). Yet, she defied conventions of age and traditional roles while overcoming challenges to become an experienced actress of theater, movies, radio, and TV for over 50 years.
Theater Beginnings
Mary Ethelbert Appleton Burke was born in Washington, D.C., on August 7, 1884. She went by Billie, after her father, William “Billy” Burke (1843-1906), a clown in the Barnum and Bailey Circus. Touring in Europe gave Billie Burke a unique childhood. She remembered having a “highly varied” education, such as learning French by traveling. Burke had 4 half-siblings from her mother, Blache’s (1844-1922), previous marriage. In her 1949 autobiography, With a Feather on My Nose, Burke credited her father for teaching her how to make people laugh, while her mother inspired her love of books. Self-described as shy, she complied with the acting ambitions her mother envisioned. Burke wrote, “My mother [. . .] might have accomplished a great deal on her own if it had not been nearly impossible for women to have careers in those days. [. . .] I suspect she pushed me toward the stage because she saw in it then the only possible opportunity for a woman to distinguish herself.”
Burke’s first play was “The School Girl” (1903), in London, at the age of 19,
followed by more successful plays in England. “My Wife” (1908), opposite John Drew, was her Broadway debut, prompting a critic to observe her youthful characterization of “a charming, unaffected, almost childlike manner.” She demonstrated versatility for a tomboy’s transformation in Broadway’s “The Amazons” (1913).
Silent Movie Ingenue and Marriage to Ziegfeld
Billie Burke made her silent movie debut in the title role of Peggy (1916), co-starring William Desmond. The plot involved her character startling the town by driving her own car and wearing overalls, later marrying a young minister (Desmond). Owing to audience popularity, Burke was paid $40,000 ($100,952 today), reportedly the highest salary for an actor then. Next, she starred in the serial Gloria’s Romance (1916) and fourteen more movies by 1921. Peggy (1916) and Arms and the Girl (1917) are Burke’s only silents known to survive.
Earlier, on New Year’s Eve in 1913, Billie Burke met Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., Broadway impresario. He was 17 years her senior, and the creator and producer of the Ziegfeld Follies (1907-32), an annual lavish musical revue, and producer of other Broadway shows. Burke understood Ziegfeld’s reputation as a womanizer. She later wrote, “I knew Flo Ziegfeld was a dangerous man. I had known that before I met him, and I felt the impact of his threat and his charm at once. But even if I had known then precisely what tortures and frustrations were in store for me during the next eighteen years because of this man, I should have kept right on falling in love.” Burke married Ziegfeld in April 1914, and their daughter, Patricia, was born in 1916.
Burke decided to prioritize her private life by traveling between Hollywood and their estate in Hastings, New York. She advised in 1919, “[It’s] important for a woman who has ever had a career to keep right on loving her work even though she’s married. And by a career I [. . .] mean a woman who has done any useful thing well [. . .] that has helped the world to be a nice place to live in in any way. . . ” Her return to theater was the Ziegfeld-produced “Intimate Strangers” (1921)in a performance noted with “the grace of the skilled actress and the deft artist as well as the endowments of facial beauty and fluent hands.” Subsequent plays included “Rose Briar” (1922) and “The Happy Husband” (1928). On tour, Burke traveled with her daughter and a staff encompassing 5 maids and 2 cars.
Debt and Grief
However, the stock market crash of 1929 altered Billie Burke’s life. Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. experienced financial hardship and illness. Their daughter remembered, “. . . My father lived on the edge of the stock market in those days with buying on margin. [. . .] We lost everything. Mother, fortunately, had made a lot of money and had bought some bonds, but nothing compared to what [my father] had lost.” As a result, Billie Burke returned to movies and began her sound debut, A Bill of Divorcement (1932), co-starring John Barrymore and Katharine Hepburn.
During filming in July 1932, she was notified Ziegfeld died at the hospital in
Hollywood. In her autobiography, she recalled fainting on set. Later, Burke and her daughter retreated to the ranch of family friend Will Rogers (1879-1935),
the legendary actor/humorist who performed in the Ziegfeld Follies, and his wife Betty. Billie Burke remembered the “kindness and tactfulness” she received when she returned to work, with gratitude to makeup artist Ern Westmore for drying her tears every morning. Ziegfeld’s debts were written to have been half a million dollars (around $12.5 million today.) This led Burke to move permanently to Hollywood under guidance by Samuel Goldwyn of M.G.M., although she produced Ziegfeld Follies revivals in 1934 and 1936.
Returning to Movies
During the Depression in the 1930s, movies were more lucrative than theater, since the latter had been affected greatly by the economy. Furthermore, Burke felt that New York had too many memories of Ziegfeld.
On screen, Billie Burke portrayed lighthearted society women. She recalled the typecast, “I don’t know exactly how I got started playing flibberty-gibbets in pictures . . . they made pictures in the thirties about sophisticated life and there always seemed to have a place for the silly clinging kind of woman that I played.” The drama Dinner at Eight (1933), is one of her most well-known roles. In it, she portrayed a distracted, wealthy dinner host to affluent guests secretly affected by the Depression, later to become humbled when she learns how the Depression has also touched the lives of her and her husband (Lionel Barrymore). The cast included John Barrymore, Marie Dressler, and Jean Harlow.
Later, Burke co-starred as a British society lady in the first three-strip Technicolor feature movie, the period drama Becky Sharp (1935), starring Miriam Hopkins and Frances Dee. While reception was reported as mostly positive, some critics noted the Technicolor process still needed developing.
Concurrently, Burke’s marriage was dramatized in The Great Ziegfeld (1936), winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, starring William Powell as Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., Louise Rainer as Anna Held, and Myrna Loy as Billie Burke.
Billie Burke’s role in Topper (1937) remains one of her most celebrated. The comedy starred Cary Grant and Constance Bennett as a carefree ghost couple who help banker Cosmo Topper (Roland Young) and his Victorian wife, Clara (Burke), enjoy life together again. Sequels were Topper Takes a Trip (1939) and Topper Returns (1941). In between the Topper movies, Burke and Roland Young starred in The Young in Heart (1938), with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Janet Gaynor, as a family of swindlers who reconsider their lifestyle.
A Successful Screen Career
At that time, age and being a widow determined a woman’s finances and identity. Billie Burke was seen as brave to restart her career in her 50’s, although there were other successful, experienced actresses, including Alice Brady, Zasu Pitts, and May Robson. Burke said in 1937, “. . . I do not think I am too old to begin again. I do not feel that age is crippling to any career—as a matter of fact, I was never better equipped to accomplish the things nearest my heart. Having been in the theater for 30 years, success has lost its glamour. This new splurge of ambition is not for fame, but for satisfaction in work well done. . . It is necessary for me to work to earn a living, but after assuring myself a modest security . . . I would like to help people. . .”
By the end of the 1930s, Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard Of Oz (1939) became her favorite role and remains her most recognized. The Wizard of Oz (1939) was the first fantasy movie in Technicolor, reflected in art direction and effects featured by Photoplay in 1939. Burke said of the “divine part” to the magazine, “There’s child enough in all of us to be thrilled with the settings and the feeling of this picture. It has terrified me a little to think of living up to the children’s idea of what a Good Fairy must be, but I can only hope with all my heart that I won’t disappoint them.”
Among her 82 movies, Billie Burke portrayed society mothers in the 1940s, such as In This Our Life (1942) starring Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland. Simultaneously, musicals about the Ziegfeld Follies were released: Ziegfeld Girl (1941) starring Judy Garland, Hedy Lamarr, and Lana Turner, and Ziegfeld Follies (1945) with Powell reprising Ziegfeld and a cast containing Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, and Red Skelton. Burke is also remembered as the mother-in-law to Elizabeth Taylor in Father of the Bride (1950) and Father’s Little Dividend (1951) with Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett as Taylor’s parents.
Radio, TV, and more Theater
In addition to her film career, Burke ventured in other mediums of the era. From the 1930s to the 1950s, she performed on radio. Most notably, Burke starred in Fashions in Ration (1943-44), interviewing experts for wartime household tips. The series transitioned to The Billie Burke Show (1944-46), a comedy about the misadventures of a single woman living in a small town with her brother.
By the 1950s, Burke made TV appearances, counting her talk show, At Home with Billie Burke (1951-52). She remained active in theater, including “Life with Mother” (1953), her summer stock debut, and “The Solid Gold Cadillac” (1956). Burke said about the power of theater, “The stage has much more impact. You remember even the smallest things for years and years. There is something about seeing live actors that gives you a memorable experience.”
Additionally, in 1959, Burke released another autobiography, With Powder on My Nose, with life tips covering widowhood and other topics.
Legacy
Recognized for her optimism in a life of personal and professional challenges, Billie Burke later explained her philosophy: “You have to work at being happy and you must expect happiness and look for it, and believe that prayers are answered.” Although she kept a warm memory of her marriage to Florenz Ziegfeld Jr., Burke recalled having to “work to make my husband happy” and further said about not remarrying, “I wasn’t sure I wanted to turn around and put another 20 years at the same thing.” Billie Burke retired in 1960 and died on May 14, 1970, at the age of 85. Her daughter, Patricia Ziegfeld Stephenson, died in 2008. In 1936, Burke established The Ziegfeld Club for chorus girls struggling financially. Revived in 2015, it supported women in the performing arts and presented the Billie Burke Ziegfeld Award to female musical theater composers until 2021. Billie Burke continues to be remembered for her performance in The Wizard of Oz (1939), while her life revealed finding joy in new beginnings.
Rachel Martinez is an artist and writer whose passion at an early age for classic movies further inspired her in storytelling. She studied film production throughout high school and went on to earn a B.A. in cinematography and a minor in creative writing.
Further Reading
Burke, Billie. Shipp, Cameron. With a Feather On My Nose, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1949.
Burke, Billie. Shipp, Cameron. With Powder on My Nose, New York: Coward-McCann Inc,1959.
Hayter-Menzies, Grant. Mrs. Ziegfeld: The Public and Private Lives of Billie Burke. North Carolina: McFarland, 2016.
“Patricia Ziegfeld Stephenson Interview.” PBS, American Masters Digital Archive, Accessed: September 19, 2025.
Ziegfeld, Richard E., Paulette. The Ziegfeld Touch: The Life and Times of Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. New York: Harry N. Abrams Publisher, 1993.
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