The (Literally) Dark Reason June Cleaver Wore Pearls

June Cleaver was the prototype of the proper ‘50s housewife, getting dinner on the spotless table by five and looking flawless while doing it. Who cares if it was a largely fictional invention because performing such strenuous labor in high heels and pearls would be completely impractical? Even Barbara Billingsley, the actress who played America’s mom on Leave It to Beaver, agreed that her costume bordered on Tolkien fantasy.

In fact, there was a practical reason for the charade; it was “not because I was cleaning the house and vacuuming in pearls,” she said in a 2000 interview with the Television Academy Foundation, complaining that when she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, expecting a conversation as meaty as her character’s roasts, Winfrey couldn’t “think of another question besides high heels and pearls.”

It all came down to the realities of filming. “I have a hollow here,” she explained, touching the base of her throat, and the lighting used on the set exaggerated it so much that producers worried viewers would be more concerned with Mrs. Cleaver’s tracheotomy than the antics of the Beaver. “Cameras and films (were) not the same as they are today, and they couldn’t get it — they showed this big hollow,” she continued. 

It wasn’t a scar, as urban legend held, but that does allow you to adopt “June Cleaver, retired streetfighter” as headcanon, so it’s okay if you want to hang onto it.

Wearing a necklace “put a shadow across” her throat that made its hollow less distracting, though “at first, it wasn’t pearls always. Then it evolved into pearls.” The National Women’s History Museum noted that Billingsley’s throat was sometimes also covered with scarves or high-cut shirts, but “pearls became her trademark in part because the clean, bright look of them translated well to film.” It was the same (or rather, the opposite) reason the pavement in the Cleavers’ neighborhood was always wet: dry pavement was too bright and caused glare. It turns out it wasn’t just zealous lawn watering.

As for those high heels, “the boys grew!” Billingsley said. She had to tower over her TV children, and at just 5-foot-5, that wasn’t always an easy task over the course of six seasons. “I wore flats in the beginning, but I knew pretty soon you got high heels” because “I had to be taller,” she said, adding, “I was lucky they didn’t put me on an apple box.” 

After all, they probably still would have made her vacuum.