Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke was an American actress who was famous on Broadway and radio, and in silent and sound films. She is best known to modern audiences as Glinda the Good Witch of the North in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie musical The Wizard of Oz (1939).
Burke in 1933
Burke in the Broadway production of Arthur Wing Pinero's The "Mind the Paint" Girl (1912)
Burke with daughter Patricia (1917)
Burke as Glinda with Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Glinda is a fictional character created by L. Frank Baum for his Oz novels. She first appears in Baum's 1900 children's classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and is the most powerful sorceress in the Land of Oz, ruler of the Quadling Country South of the Emerald City, and protector of Princess Ozma.
Glinda depicted in The Marvelous Land of Oz, illustrated by John R. Neill
Dorothy (Judy Garland, right) with Glinda, the Good Witch of the North (Billie Burke) in The Wizard of Oz, 1939
Fabi Bang as Glinda in the original Brazilian production of Wicked