Airplane!: 20 Behind the Scenes Stories of a Perfect Comic Takeoff

Al White and Norman Alexander Gibbs Taught Barbara Billingsley Jive

“These fellas were wonderful, and they taught me,” Billingley said in her Archive of American Television interview. “They could rattle off jive like you have no idea. I could never get a clue as to how it was done. … Maybe they were good teachers!”

She also said she had done some research into the history of jive, and that no one knew if it was “street talk” or if enslaved Black people had invented it because “they didn’t want whitey to know what they were talking about.”

Al White explained in the book, “I ended up writing Barbara Billingley’s jive dialogue and instructing her in the proper elocution. She was very intent on getting it right.”

White’s mother was a Leave it to Beaver fan, and White asked Billingsley if she would mind talking with her on the phone. “I called my mother, and I said, ‘Mom, I have Barbara Billingsley here, and she’d actually like to speak with you. She was so excited, and Barbara was so gracious,” White said in the book.

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