🔗 Share this article

Launching her career in cinema, June Lockhart, who passed on aged 100, achieved her biggest success after switching largely to television. Having been given few opportunities to shine in films from her debut as a youngster in 1938 until 1947, she thrived on TV in numerous popular series, especially in Lassie.

Portraying Ruth Martin on Lassie

Taking over from another actress in 1958, Lockhart remained in the series until 1964. Her role was Ruth Martin, married to agriculturalist Paul Martin and the adoptive mother of seven-year-old Timmy Martin, whose collie was the titular star of the series.

Even with playing a mother figure, Lockhart skillfully avoided being outshone by the brilliant dog. She characterized the show as “a fantasy about families on a rural property in which the dog solves all the problems in 22 minutes, in time for the last commercial”. After she left the show, Lockhart commented: “In six sexless years of playing a rural wife and parent, I was rarely permitted to kiss my co-star on the face.”

Journey into Lost in Space

Lockhart went straight into a second hit, Lost in Space (1965-68), a semi-spoof science fiction series targeted primarily at children and inspired by The Swiss Family Robinson. Lockhart and another actor played Maureen and John Robinson, two scientists investigating distant planets. Lockhart had to spend the majority of her time deftly trying to survive visual effects. As the series progressed, the narrative became less and less about this interstellar family and more about the boy and his friendship with a robot, and the cowardly villain Dr Zachary Smith.

Early Career and Family Influence

Lockhart’s movie first role, at the age of 13, had come as Belinda Cratchit in A Christmas Carol (1938). In the parts of her parents, Bob and Mrs Cratchit, were her real-life parents, Gene and Kathleen Lockhart. As UK-native Kathleen and Canadian-born Gene were both actors in dozens of films, as well as on stage, it was nearly certain that June, who was born in New York, would enter the entertainment industry.

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

Hollywood Work

When her parent was offered a contract by a motion picture studio, after his acclaim on Broadway, she moved with her parents to Hollywood, where Gene made around 300 films. After going to school in Beverly Hills, June began her professional life in films, 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 latter, she is delightful as a New Yorker at a family party, whose schedule is filled spitefully to stop Lockhart interacting with her sibling.

More significantly, although she did not know it at the time, was Son of Lassie (1945). It was one of several follow-ups to the hugely successful Lassie Come Home (1943), in which another actress had played the girl who assists the canine to escape to the family. In the subsequent film, Lockhart played the now adult version.

The affectionate way in which she interacted with both Lassie and her son, Laddie, hero of a World War II story in Nazi-occupied Norway, was in the consideration of the producers when it came to selecting the Lassie TV series 13 years later.

Shift to Television and Broadway Achievement

Although she was offered major roles in two suspense films, She-Wolf of London (1946) and Bury Me Dead (1947), Lockhart concluded her film career was getting her nowhere and that television would be the solution. Before embarking in a new direction, she received praise on Broadway in For Love or Money (1947), a comedy for which she won a Tony award as best newcomer.

A further substantial run came with Petticoat Junction (1968-70), set in a rural hotel, where Lockhart is a physician and mother figure. She also featured regularly in TV westerns in the 50s, such as Have Gun Will Travel, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, and Rawhide. Her hectic schedule 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 herself in a 1988 episode of a talkshow, where the presenter finds a stray collie, and in another sitcom in 1995 as the parent of a dining manager.

Later Career and Impact

Her final TV appearance came in 2021 as the voice of Alpha Control in an episode of a streaming service’s remake of Lost in Space. In the big screen version featuring well-known actors (1998), she had a holographic 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 participated in the agency’s launches and other events. In 2013 her work as a unpaid representative brought her its Exceptional Public Achievement Medal.

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

Personal Details

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

She is survived by her children and four grandchildren.

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