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Launching her career in cinema, June Lockhart, who passed on aged 100, achieved her greatest success after switching largely to the small screen. Having been offered few opportunities to excel in movies from her first appearance as a youngster in 1938 until 1947, she thrived on television in numerous beloved series, most notably in Lassie.

Her Iconic Role in Lassie

Stepping in from a previous star in 1958, Lockhart remained in the series until 1964. She played Ruth Martin, wed to agriculturalist Paul Martin and the foster mother of seven-year-old Timmy Martin, whose collie was the titular hero of the series.

Despite playing a housewife, Lockhart skillfully avoided being overshadowed by the smart animal star. She described the show as “a fantasy about families on a rural property in which the dog resolves all the problems in 22 minutes, in time for the last advertisement”. After she departed the series, Lockhart remarked: “In six chaste years of playing a rural wife and mother, I was rarely allowed to peck my on-screen husband on the face.”

Adventure into Lost in Space

Lockhart went straight into a second hit, Lost in Space (1965-68), a semi-spoof sci-fi series targeted mostly at young audiences and based by The Swiss Family Robinson. Lockhart and another actor played Maureen and John Robinson, two scientists investigating alien planets. Lockhart had to spend the majority of her time deftly trying to navigate visual effects. As the show progressed, the storyline became increasingly less about this interstellar family and more about the young son and his friendship with a robot, and the cowardly antagonist Dr Zachary Smith.

Start in Entertainment

Lockhart’s feature film debut, at the young age of 13, had come as Belinda Cratchit in A Christmas Carol (1938). In the roles of her mother and father, Bob and Mrs Cratchit, were her real-life parents, Gene and Kathleen Lockhart. As UK-native Kathleen and Canada-native Gene were both performers in many of movies, as well as on theater, it was almost certain that June, who was born in New York, would join the entertainment industry.

Her first theatrical appearance, at the tender age of six, came in a non-musical role in an opera at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1931).

Move to Hollywood and Film Roles

When her father was given a contract by a motion picture studio, after his acclaim on Broadway, she moved with her parents to Hollywood, where Gene made approximately 300 films. After going to school in Beverly Hills, June began her professional life in movies, mainly in minor roles in acclaimed pictures such as Sergeant York (1941), The White Cliffs of Dover (1942) and Meet Me in St Louis (1944). In the last one, she is charming as a New Yorker at a household party, whose dance card is filled spitefully to stop Lockhart dancing with her sibling.

More significantly, although she did not know it at the time, was Son of Lassie (1945). It was one of several sequels to the hugely successful Lassie Come Home (1943), in which a young star had played the female character who helps the canine to escape to the owners. In the later film, Lockhart played the now adult version.

The loving way in which she interacted with both Lassie and her son, Laddie, protagonist of a wartime adventure in Nazi-occupied Norway, was in the consideration of the creators when it came to selecting the Lassie TV series 13 years later.

Television and Stage Work

Although she was offered leading roles in two suspense films, She-Wolf of London (1946) and Bury Me Dead (1947), Lockhart decided her film career was stagnating and that TV would be the solution. Before going in a different direction, she received praise on Broadway in For Love or Money (1947), a humorous play for which she won a Tony award as best newcomer.

A additional significant run came with Petticoat Junction (1968-70), set in a rural hotel, where Lockhart is a physician and mother figure. She also appeared frequently in TV westerns in the 50s, such as Have Gun Will Travel, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, and Rawhide. Her hectic workload persisted for the next five decades, with a regular role in General Hospital between 1984 and 1998. Among her many one-off appearances were as the actress in a 1988 episode of a talkshow, where the host finds a lost collie, and in another sitcom in 1995 as the mother of a dining manager.

Later Career and Impact

Her last TV appearance came in 2021 as the narration of Alpha Control in an episode of a streaming service’s new version of Lost in Space. In the big screen version starring famous actors (1998), she had a digital cameo as a school principal. She took pleasure in learning how much of an influence the original series had been to later astronauts, and often attended the agency’s launches and other events. In 2013 her work as a unpaid spokesperson brought her its Exceptional Public Achievement Medal.

Among her few subsequent feature films was the fantasy, Troll (1986) in which she played a witch, with her own daughter, Anne Lockhart, playing her earlier self.

Private Information

In 1951 she wed John Maloney, a physician and former Navy doctor. In addition to Anne, they had another daughter, June. That marriage ended in divorce, as did her second marriage, to John Lindsay, an architect.

She is survived by her daughters and four grandchildren.

June Lockhart, actor, born 25 June 1925; died 23 October 2025