🔗 Share this article

Starting her career in cinema, June Lockhart, who passed on aged 100, found her biggest success after shifting predominantly to television. Having been offered limited opportunities to excel in movies from her first appearance as a child in 1938 until 1947, she excelled on television in many beloved series, especially in Lassie.

Portraying Ruth Martin on Lassie

Taking over from a previous star in 1958, Lockhart remained in the show until 1964. She played Ruth Martin, wed to farmer Paul Martin and the adoptive mother of young Timmy Martin, whose collie was the titular star of the series.

In her role as a homemaker, Lockhart somehow managed to avoid being completely overshadowed by the intelligent canine. She characterized the program as “a fairy tale about people on a rural property in which the canine solves all the problems in 22 minutes, in time for the last commercial”. After she departed the show, Lockhart commented: “In six sexless years of playing a rural wife and parent, I was hardly ever permitted to kiss my co-star on the face.”

Journey into Lost in Space

Lockhart went straight into another successful series, Lost in Space (1965-68), a partly comedic science fiction series aimed primarily at young audiences and based by The Swiss Family Robinson. Lockhart and her co-star portrayed Maureen and John Robinson, two researchers exploring alien planets. Lockhart had to spend the majority of her time deftly trying to survive special effects. As the show progressed, the storyline became increasingly less about this interstellar family and increasingly about the boy and his friendship with a robot, and the timid antagonist Dr Zachary Smith.

Start in Show Business

Lockhart’s movie first role, 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 British-born Kathleen and Canada-native Gene were both actors 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 age of six, came in a non-musical role in an musical production at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1931).

Cinema Work

When her parent was offered a deal by a film studio, after his acclaim on Broadway, she moved with her parents to Hollywood, where Gene made approximately 300 films. After attending school in Beverly Hills, June began her professional life in movies, mainly in small 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 delightful as a New Yorker at a household party, whose dance card is arranged spitefully to stop Lockhart dancing with her brother.

More significantly, although she did not realize it at the time, was Son of Lassie (1945). It was one of multiple sequels to the hugely successful Lassie Come Home (1943), in which another actress had played the female character who assists the canine to return to the family. In the subsequent film, Lockhart played the now adult version.

The loving way in which she handled both Lassie and her offspring, Laddie, hero of a World War II adventure in Nazi-occupied Norway, was in the minds of the creators when it came to casting the Lassie TV series 13 years later.

Shift to Television and Broadway Achievement

Although she was offered leading roles in two suspense films, She-Wolf of London (1946) and Bury Me Dead (1947), Lockhart concluded her film career was stagnating and that television would be the answer. Before embarking in a new direction, she won acclaim 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 country hotel, where Lockhart is a doctor and mother figure. She also featured frequently in TV cowboy shows in the 50s, such as Have Gun Will Travel, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, and Rawhide. Her busy workload persisted for the following five decades, with a recurring role in General Hospital between 1984 and 1998. Among her many one-off appearances were as herself in a 1988 episode of a comedy series, where the host finds a lost collie, and in another sitcom in 1995 as the mother of a restaurant manager.

Final Career and Impact

Her last TV credit came in 2021 as the voice of Alpha Control in an episode of a streaming service’s new version of Lost in Space. In the big screen version featuring well-known 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 organization’s launches and other events. In 2013 her work as a unpaid representative brought her its prestigious award.

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 younger self.

Personal Information

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

She is remembered by her daughters and four grandchildren.

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