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Starting her career in cinema, June Lockhart, who passed on aged 100, achieved her greatest success after shifting largely to the small screen. Having been offered few opportunities to excel in films from her debut as a child in 1938 until 1947, she thrived on television in many popular series, especially in Lassie.

Becoming Ruth Martin on Lassie

Stepping in from another actress in 1958, Lockhart continued in the series until 1964. Her role was Ruth Martin, wed to farmer Paul Martin and the foster mother of seven-year-old Timmy Martin, whose collie was the titular star of the series.

In her role as a homemaker, Lockhart somehow succeeded to avoid being totally overshadowed by the clever canine. She described the show as “a fairy tale about families on a farm in which the dog 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 rarely allowed to peck my co-star on the face.”

Adventure into Lost in Space

Lockhart went directly into a second successful series, Lost in Space (1965-68), a partly comedic sci-fi series aimed primarily at young audiences and based by The Swiss Family Robinson. Lockhart and another actor portrayed Maureen and John Robinson, two researchers investigating distant planets. Lockhart had to spend most of her time deftly trying to navigate visual effects. As the series progressed, the narrative became increasingly less about this space clan and more about the young son and his friendship with a mechanical being, and the cowardly villain Dr Zachary Smith.

Start in Show Business

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 mother and father, Bob and Mrs Cratchit, were her actual 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 almost inevitable that June, who was born in New York, would join show business.

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

Cinema Career

When her father was given a contract by a film studio, after his success on Broadway, she moved with her parents to Hollywood, where Gene made around 300 films. After going to school in Beverly Hills, June started her professional life in films, mainly in small roles in prestigious 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 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 a young star had played the girl who helps the canine to return to the owners. In the later film, Lockhart played the now adult version.

The loving way in which she handled both Lassie and her son, Laddie, protagonist of a wartime adventure in enemy-held Norway, was in the minds of the producers 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 decided her film career was getting her nowhere and that TV would be the answer. Before going in a new direction, she received acclaim on Broadway in For Love or Money (1947), a humorous play for which she won a Tony award as most promising newcomer.

A additional substantial run came with Petticoat Junction (1968-70), set in a country hotel, where Lockhart is a doctor and mother figure. She also featured regularly in TV cowboy shows in the 50s, such as Have Gun Will Travel, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, and Rawhide. Her hectic workload continued for the next five decades, with a recurring role in General Hospital between 1984 and 1998. Among her many guest appearances were as the actress 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 dining manager.

Later Roles and Contributions

Her final TV appearance came in 2021 as the narration of Alpha Control in an episode of a digital platform’s new version of Lost in Space. In the big screen version featuring famous actors (1998), she had a holographic cameo as a school principal. She took joy 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 few 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 married John Maloney, a doctor and former Navy doctor. In addition to Anne, they had a second daughter, June. That union ended in separation, as did her second marriage, to John Lindsay, an designer.

She is survived by her children and four grandchildren.

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