June Lockhart, affectionately known as Lassie’s mom to a generation of Baby Boomers for her portrayal of Ruth Martin on the long-running series, has died. She was 100.
Lockhart, famous for playing other nurturing characters on two other CBS shows in the 1960s — the matriarch on the sci-fi drama Lost in Space and the “lady doctor” on the rural sitcom Petticoat Junction — died Thursday of natural causes in Santa Monica, a family spokesperson announced.
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Her father was the great character actor Gene Lockhart — he received an Oscar nomination in 1939 for Algiers and appeared in such classics as His Girl Friday, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Meet John Doe and Miracle on 34th Street — and her mother was actress Kathleen Lockhart (Lady in the Lake).
Her parents, who were introduced to each other by Thomas Edison when they barnstormed for him as he trotted out one of his inventions, appeared together as husband and wife Bob and Emily Cratchit in MGM’s A Christmas Carol (1938), and June made her movie debut in that film as one of their kids.
“You could say I am one of Edison’s good ideas,” she often said.
Before she hit 25, the wholesome, bright-eyed Lockhart also appeared in All This, and Heaven Too (1940) opposite Charles Boyer and Bette Davis; as Gary Cooper’s sister in Sergeant York (1941); as Lucille Ballard, the beauty first misjudged by Judy Garland, in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944); as a woman convinced she’s a monster in the Universal horror film She-Wolf of London (1946); and as a supportive wife in T-Men (1947), directed by Anthony Mann.
Lockhart, who had a supporting role in MGM’s 1945 sequel Son of Lassie, became a household name in America soon after replacing Cloris Leachman as Ruth at the start of Lassie‘s fifth season in September 1958. She had been approached before Leachman accepted the role but had turned it down.
“I thought about what I had been offered and said to myself, ‘What am I being so damn grand about?’” she once recalled. “I have two children to support, the part they want me to play has a lot of dignity, the show is already on the air, I wouldn’t have to film a pilot, and they have a sponsor. This is a really great gift that has been offered to me.”
Lockhart gave substance to the strong farm wife, always worried about whether her husband (Hugh Reilly) could bring in the bean crop. Their adopted son, Timmy, was played by Jon Provost, who had joined the series a season earlier at age 7 as an orphan runaway.
Lockhart portrayed Ruth on more than 200 episodes and received an Emmy nomination in 1959. (During her run, four pooches played Lassie.) Soon after the start of the 1964-65 season, Lockhart, Reilly and Provost were written out as the “boy and his dog” theme was jettisoned in favor of the collie being paired with a Forest Service Ranger (Robert Bray). The family was moving to Australia, and the dog couldn’t come with them, viewers were told.
“I certainly enjoyed Lassie. I’d be with it yet if they hadn’t changed the format,” she said decades later.
Lockhart wasn’t out of work for long, quickly moving to another motherly role, the biochemist Maureen Robinson on the 1965-68 series Lost in Space. (She was offered the part after appearing on an episode of another Irwin Allen-produced series, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.)
Her husband on the show was Prof. John Robinson (Guy Williams), and they and their three children (played by Marta Kristen, Angela Cartwright and Billy Mumy) were stranded after their spacecraft was sent off course by a stowaway (Jonathan Harris) during a colonization mission.
After Lost in Space was canceled, Lockhart joined Petticoat Junction during its sixth season as Janet Craig, who arrived in Hooterville to replace the town’s retiring Doc Stuart (Regis Toomey) and lived at the Shady Rest Hotel. She effectively replaced actress Bea Benaderet, who had died in October 1968, and remained with the comedy until it ended in 1970.
June Lockhart was born June 25, 1925, in New York City, the only child of her actor parents, who were married the previous June (obviously, that month was big for them). At age 8, she appeared in a pantomime scene in Peter Ibbetson at the Metropolitan Opera House, where she was studying ballet.
Her father signed with MGM, and the family headed to Southern California in 1934. Lockhart attended the Westlake School for Girls, living there five days a week, and spent weekends and holidays with her folks water-skiing on Lake Arrowhead.
She made her Broadway debut in 1947, playing an ingenue in the comedy For Love or Money, and was an overnight toast of the Great White Way, winning a Tony (for outstanding performance by a newcomer), a Donaldson Award and a Theatre World Award. The Associated Press honored her as Woman of the Year for Drama.
In the 1950s, Lockhart worked mainly in television, with appearances on such shows as Zane Grey Theater, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, Studio One in Hollywood and The United States Steel Hour. When Fran Allison took time off, she stepped in to work with the puppets on Kukla, Fran and Ollie. Later, she served as a regular host on beauty pageants and holiday parades.
More recently, Lockhart appeared intermittently as matriarch Maria Ramirez on General Hospital and guest-starred as Ryan Stiles’ mother on The Drew Carey Show, as the Tanner girls’ kindergarten teacher on Full House and as the grandmother of Tori Spelling on Beverly Hills, 90210. She was one of the “TV moms” featured on a 1995 episode of Roseanne.
In the 1998 Lost in Space movie, she had a cameo as Principal Cartwright.
One of her daughters is actress Anne Lockhart, who has appeared on scores of shows, including Battlestar Galactica and Chicago Fire. They worked together on Magnum, P.I. and in the 1986 sci-fi film Troll. Survivors include her other daughter, June, and a granddaughter, Christianna.
While working on Lost in Space, Lockhart developed a fascination for science and outer space. She brought her celebrity to NASA and spent a lot of time in Houston and elsewhere, making appearances at dinners and conventions and mixing with the astronauts and their wives. The agency honored her with its Exceptional Public Achievement Medal in 2013.
Her father had written the lyrics to the 1919 ballad “The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise” (recorded by Benny Goodman, Les Paul & Mary Ford and Willie Nelson, among others), and after Lockhart brought it to the attention of NASA in 1992, the agency used the song to wake the crew of the Columbia Space Shuttle each day.
Duane Byrge contributed to this report.
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