The red-haired actress, best known as Glinda the Good Witch, was born Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke on August 7, 1885. She was the daughter of internationally known circus clown Billy Burke and spent most of her childhood touring with Barnum and Bailey.
Her family eventually moved to London, and she made her first appearance on the London stage at age 18. By age 22, she had become a popular Broadway actress and starred in her first film, a silent movie called Peggy, when she was 31.
Two years before, Burke had married famous Broadway promoter Florenz Ziegfeld of the Ziegfeld Follies. Money was plentiful, so she decided to retire from show business in 1921 when she was just 36 years old. With the stock market crash of 1929, however, Ziegfeld’s investments were wiped out, and Burke was forced to return to work to support her family. Her famous husband died just three years later.
Between 1929 and 1960, Burke appeared in nearly 70 films. Most of the time she played daffy, scatter-brained society ladies. Some highlights from her career include Dinner at Eight in 1933 and Father of the Bride with Elizabeth Taylor and Spencer Tracy in 1950. She received her only Academy Award nomination for her role as Emily Kilbourne in Merrily We Live in 1938.
At age 54, Burke was cast as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz. According to The Making of The Wizard of Oz by Aljean Harmetz, Burke was picked from a group of eight "characters and comediennes" who were then under contract at MGM. She received $766.67 per week as well as the royal treatment on the Oz set.
According to The Making of The Wizard of Oz, Wicked Witch of the West Margaret Hamilton’s dressing room consisted of a canvas tent with a "dirty-looking rug", a card table, and folding chair. Burke’s room, on the other hand, had pink satin walls, a pink chaise-lounge, and a dainty fur rug.
"She had a pink and blue dressing room, with pink and blue powder puffs and pink and blue bottles filled with powder and baby oil," Hamilton remembered in the book. "And pink and blue peppermints. And an infinite number of perfectly beautiful clothes, all lace; and everything was pink and blue."
Burke continued to work in movies until the age of 75. Her final roles were Cordelia Fosgate in Sergeant Rutledge and a cameo appearance in Pepe, both released in 1960. She spent her final years in Los Angeles and died May 14, 1970 at the age of 84.
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