In 1937, Burke appeared in the first of the "Topper" films, in which she played the twittering and daffy Clara Topper, who is married to a man haunted by socialite ghosts played by Cary Grant and Constance Bennett. Her next performance as Emily Kilbourne in "Merrily We Live" (1938) resulted in her only Oscar nomination. In 1938, she was chosen to play Glinda the Good Witch of the North in the musical "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), directed by Victor Fleming, starring Judy Garland. She had previously worked with Garland in the film "Everybody Sing", in which she played Judy's histrionically hysterical actress-mother. Director George Cukor offered her the role of Aunt Pittypat in "Gone With the Wind" (1939), but she declined and it was played by Laura Hope Crews, a character that Cukor wanted to be played in a "Billie Burke-ish manner" with "the same zany feeling". Another successful film 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. Burke also portrayed Mrs. Ernest (Daisy) Stanley in the 1942 film "The Man Who Came to Dinner".