🔗 Share this article

Starting her career in films, June Lockhart, who died aged 100, achieved her biggest success after switching largely to television. Having been given limited opportunities to excel in films from her first appearance as a child in 1938 until 1947, she thrived on TV in numerous popular series, most notably in Lassie.

Becoming Ruth Martin on Lassie

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

Despite playing a mother figure, Lockhart adeptly avoided being overshadowed by the smart animal star. She characterized the program as “a fantasy about families on a farm in which the dog resolves all the issues in 22 minutes, in time for the last advertisement”. After she left the series, Lockhart commented: “In six chaste years of playing a rural spouse and mother, I was rarely permitted to peck my co-star on the cheek.”

Adventure into Lost in Space

Lockhart went straight into a second successful series, Lost in Space (1965-68), a partly comedic science fiction series targeted mostly at children and based by The Swiss Family Robinson. Lockhart and her co-star played Maureen and John Robinson, two scientists exploring distant planets. Lockhart had to spend the majority of her time skillfully trying to survive visual effects. As the series progressed, the narrative became less and less about this space clan and more about the young son and his friendship with a robot, and the cowardly villain Dr Zachary Smith.

Start in Show Business

Lockhart’s movie 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 actual parents, Gene and Kathleen Lockhart. As UK-native Kathleen and Canadian-born Gene were both actors in dozens of movies, as well as on theater, it was almost inevitable that June, who was born in New York, would enter show business.

Her first stage 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 Work

When her father was offered a deal by a film studio, after his success on Broadway, she relocated with her family to Hollywood, where Gene made approximately 300 films. After going to school in Beverly Hills, June began her career 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 prevent Lockhart interacting with her sibling.

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 a young star had played the girl who helps the canine to escape to the owners. In the later film, Lockhart played the now adult character.

The loving way in which she handled both Lassie and her son, Laddie, hero of a wartime story in enemy-held Norway, was in the minds of the creators when it came to selecting the Lassie TV series 13 years later.

Television and Stage Work

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

A further significant run came with Petticoat Junction (1968-70), set in a country hotel, where Lockhart is a physician 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 following 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 host finds a lost collie, and in another sitcom in 1995 as the mother of a restaurant manager.

Final Roles and Contributions

Her last TV credit came in 2021 as the voice of Alpha Control in an episode of a digital platform’s remake of Lost in Space. In the big screen version featuring famous actors (1998), she had a holographic cameo as a school principal. She took pleasure in learning how much of an inspiration the first series had been to future astronauts, and often attended the agency’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 sorceress, 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 another 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