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Starting her career in films, June Lockhart, who passed on aged 100, achieved her greatest success after shifting predominantly to the small screen. Having been given limited chances to excel in movies from her first appearance as a youngster in 1938 until 1947, she thrived on television in numerous popular series, most notably in Lassie.

Portraying Ruth Martin on Lassie

Taking over from another actress in 1958, Lockhart continued in the series until 1964. Her role was Ruth Martin, wed to farmer Paul Martin and the adoptive mother of seven-year-old Timmy Martin, whose dog was the titular hero of the series.

In her part as a housewife, Lockhart somehow managed to avoid being totally upstaged by the intelligent canine. She described the program as “a fairy tale about families on a farm in which the canine resolves all the issues in 22 minutes, in time for the last advertisement”. After she departed the show, Lockhart remarked: “In six chaste years of playing a rural spouse and mother, I was rarely permitted to kiss my co-star on the cheek.”

Journey into Lost in Space

Lockhart went straight into another hit, Lost in Space (1965-68), a partly comedic science fiction series targeted primarily at children and based by The Swiss Family Robinson. Lockhart and another actor played Maureen and John Robinson, two scientists investigating distant planets. Lockhart had to spend most of her time deftly trying to survive visual effects. As the show continued, the storyline became less and less about this interstellar clan and increasingly about the young son and his friendship with a robot, and the cowardly villain Dr Zachary Smith.

Beginnings in Show Business

Lockhart’s movie debut, at the age of 13, had come as Belinda Cratchit in A Christmas Carol (1938). In the parts 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 films, as well as on theater, it was nearly certain that June, who was born in New York, would enter the entertainment industry.

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

Cinema Work

When her father was offered a deal by a film studio, after his success on Broadway, she relocated with her parents to Hollywood, where Gene made approximately 300 films. After going to school in Beverly Hills, June started her career in films, mostly 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 maliciously to stop Lockhart dancing with her brother.

More importantly, although she did not know it at the time, was Son of Lassie (1945). It was one of multiple follow-ups to the hugely successful Lassie Come Home (1943), in which a young star had played the female character who helps the dog to return to the family. In the subsequent film, Lockhart played the now grown-up character.

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

Shift to Television and Stage Achievement

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 getting her nowhere and that television would be the solution. Before going in a different direction, she won acclaim on Broadway in For Love or Money (1947), a comedy for which she won a Tony award as most promising newcomer.

A further substantial run came with Petticoat Junction (1968-70), set in a rural hotel, where Lockhart is a doctor and mother figure. She also appeared regularly in TV cowboy shows in the 50s, such as Have Gun Will Travel, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, and Rawhide. Her busy workload continued for the next five decades, with a regular role in General Hospital between 1984 and 1998. Among her many guest appearances were as herself in a 1988 episode of a comedy series, where the presenter finds a lost collie, and in another sitcom in 1995 as the parent of a dining manager.

Later Roles and Achievements

Her last TV appearance came in 2021 as the voice of Alpha Control in an episode of a digital platform’s remake of Lost in Space. In the movie version featuring well-known actors (1998), she had a holographic cameo as a school principal. She took pleasure in learning how much of an inspiration 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 limited subsequent feature films was the fantasy, Troll (1986) in which she portrayed a witch, with her own daughter, Anne Lockhart, playing her earlier self.

Personal Life and Family

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

She is survived by her daughters and four grandkids.

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