Barbara Billingsley, known to millions of TV fans as the pearls-wearing housewife June Cleaver on the classic sitcom 'Leave it to Beaver,' has passed away at the age of 94.

A family spokeswoman said Billingsley died of polymyalgia, a rheumatoid disease, at her home in Santa Monica, Calif.

In a statement, her TV son, Jerry Mathers, said, "I am deeply saddened by the loss of my dear friend and lifetime mentor Barbara Billingsley. She will live in the hearts of her fans as a wonderful actress and be remembered by her friends as a gracious lady."

"She will be deeply missed by all of her family, friends, fans and most especially by me."

I was going to title this post "Louvre it to Beaver," but a quick check showed that 98% of the people doing the story on the web had already thought of that title. Everything moves so quickly these days.

Tony Dow, who played Beaver's older brother Wally Cleaver on the classic series Leave it to Beaver, is also an artist, and he's going to have one of his sculptures shown at the famed Paris museum The Louvre. It's an abstract sculpture titled "Unarmed Warrior."

Dow doesn't act much anymore, but he was busy behind the scenes of TV shows and movies while doing his artwork. He directed episodes of such shows as Deep Space Nine, Coach, Crusade, Get A Life, Swamp Thing, and Cover Me. He also did visual effects for the Doctor Who TV movie in the 90s, as well as Babylon 5.

So Dow didn't die from eating Pop Rocks, become a porn star, or end up dying in Vietnam, rumors which swirled around his Beaver costars and aren't true.

(S03E15) The folks over at Medium are on something of a guest star roll. After a nice turn last week by Eric Stoltz, this week they treat us to Peri Gilpin (Frasier) as Allison's mother Diane Benoit. That wasn't the only piece of nice casting here. Given the ratings of their former shows, I'm sure that Kyle Gallner (Veronica Mars) isn't as recognizable as Gilpin, but it was nice to see him again.

For her part, Gilpin was terrific. Diane certainly had her issues, but considering what we know about Allison, I don't think anyone was expecting June Cleaver. The booze and the parenting with pills were a little disturbing, but in her own crazy way I got the feeling that she really was trying to do what she thought was best for Allison. While she seems to have avoided some of the mistakes Diane made, Allison does share that trait with her mother.