Thanks to her representation by famed producer
Charles Frohman, Burke went on to play leads on
Broadway in
Mrs. Dot,
Suzanne,
The Runaway,
The "Mind-the-Paint" Girl, and
The Land of Promise from 1910 to 1913, along with a supporting role in the revival of Sir Arthur Wing Pinero’s
The Amazons.
There she caught the eye of producer
Florenz Ziegfeld, marrying him in 1914. In
1916, they had one daughter, Patricia Ziegfeld. She was quickly signed for the movies, making her film debut in the title role of
Peggy (1916). She continued to appear on the stage, and sometimes she starred on the screen. She loved the stage more than movie-business, not only because it was her first love, but also because it allowed her to have speaking parts (impossible in silent movies). But when the family's savings were wiped out in the
Crash of 1929, she had no choice but to return to the screen.
In 1932 Billie Burke made her
Hollywood comeback, starring as Margaret Fairfield in
A Bill of Divorcement, directed by
George Cukor, though the film is better known as
Katharine Hepburn's film debut (Burke played Hepburn's mother). Despite the death of
Florenz Ziegfeld during the film's production, Billie Burke resumed filming shortly after his funeral.
In 1936, MGM filmed a biopic of her deceased husband (
The Great Ziegfeld), a film that won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Actress (
Luise Rainer as Ziegfeld's first wife,
Anna Held). Burke was herself a character in the film, but she was not cast as herself. Instead, prominent actress
Myrna Loy essayed the role of Burke. Coincidently,
Ray Bolger who was later cast as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz also starred as himself in the movie.
In
1933, Burke was cast as Mrs. Millicent Jordan, a scatterbrained high-society woman hosting a dinner party in the comedy
Dinner at Eight, directed by
George Cukor, co-starring with
Lionel Barrymore,
Marie Dressler,
John Barrymore,
Jean Harlow and
Wallace Beery. The movie was a great success, and revived Burke's career. She subsequently starred in many comedies and musicals, typecast as a ditzy, fluffy and feather-brained upper-class matron, due to her helium-filled voice.
In
1937 she appeared in the first of the
Topper series of films, about a man haunted by two socialite ghosts (played by
Cary Grant and
Constance Bennett), in which she played the tremulous and daffy Clara Topper. Her performance as Emily Kilbourne in
Merrily We Live (1938) resulted in her only
Oscar nomination.
In 1938 (at age 53) she was chosen to play
Glinda, "the Good Witch of the North", in the Oscar-winning seminal 1939 musical film
The Wizard of Oz, directed by
Victor Fleming, with
Judy Garland.
Another successful series followed with
Father of the Bride (1950) and
Father's Little Dividend (1951), both directed by
Vincente Minnelli and starring
Spencer Tracy,
Joan Bennett, and
Elizabeth Taylor.
She wrote two autobiographies, both with Cameron Van Shippe:
With a Feather on My Nose (Appleton 1949) and
With Powder on My Nose (Coward McCann, 1959).
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