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Think the world’s toughest job is being a mother? Just imagine you’re a mother and your son’s best friend is a dog with a knack for finding dangerous situations and people in peril. Now imagine you’re a mother with a son whose friends are a 6’7″, 500-pound robot and a sneaky saboteur who tried to kill your family. Those were the domestic situations which actress June Lockhart, who celebrates her 100th birthday today, took in stride as the mom on the perennially popular TV shows Lassie and Lost in Space.
A third-generation performer, June was born in New York City in 1925, the daughter of stage actors Gene and Kathleen Lockhart and granddaughter of singer John Coates Lockhart. She made her own stage debut at the tender age of 8, playing Mimsy in a Metropolitan Opera production of Peter Ibbetson. When her parents moved the family to Southern California in the mid-’30s to pursue movie work, young June followed them right into the studio. Her first film role came in M-G-M’s 1938 adaptation of A Christmas Carol, cast as daughter Belinda to her folks’ Mr. and Mrs. Bob Cratchit.
Over the next decade June would come of age while being featured in a variety of roles for M-G-M and other studios. She was the oldest child under governess Bette Davis’s care in All This, and Heaven Too (1940); Gary Cooper’s little sister in 1941’s Sergeant York; a rival-turned-friend for Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944); and–in a sign of things to come–played Peter Lawford’s love interest in 1945’s Son of Lassie. One of her odder appearances came as a young English woman who fears she’s inherited her family’s lycanthropic curse in the 1946 Universal shocker She-Wolf of London.
Following her work in a pair of 1947 pictures–the “Senator Claghorn” comedy It’s a Joke, Son and Anthony Mann’s noir drama T-Men–Lockhart left Hollywood and returned to New York to follow in her parents’ Broadway footsteps. Her turn in the drawing room comedy For Love or Money earned her a 1948 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Newcomer (the only year the award was presented).
In the early 1950s Lockhart worked mostly in the theater but made guest shots on such TV shows as Ford Theater Hour (Amy in “Little Women”), Hallmark Hall of Fame (as Dolly Madison), Have Gun–Will Travel, and Gunsmoke. June would reach small-screen stardom when she was chosen to replace the departing Cloris Leachman as Ruth Martin, foster mom to little Timmy (Jon Provost), in Season Five of Lassie in 1958. Fun Fact: That same season Hugh Reilly took over for Jon Shepodd as dad Paul Martin. Funny how Lassie never warned Timmy about the parental switch.
Lockhart would stay on Lassie for six seasons until the show’s format was changed in 1964. After her tenure on the Martin farm ended she would turn up on Perry Mason, Bewitched, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and other programs. In 1965 June got a second regular series shot as interplanetary explorer Dr. Maureen Robinson on Irwin Allen’s Lost in Space.
A biochemist and mother of three, Maureen’s science duties seemed to take a backseat to meal preparation and looking after her family as the Robinsons tried to find their way back to Earth. Lockhart took the part seriously, even as the show evolved into a more comedic format, focusing on the adventures of young Will Robinson (Bill Mumy), the conniving Dr. Smith (Johnathan Harris), and the B9 robot. It also didn’t hurt that she looked good in a silver spacesuit.
Following 1968’s end to the Jupiter II’s (unfinished) three-year space odyssey, Lockhart hit the ground running. As “lady M.D.” Dr. Janet Craig, she hung out her shingle at the Shady Rest Hotel that same year for the final two seasons of the popular CBS sitcom Petticoat Junction. Janet served as a pseudo-mother figure for sisters Betty Jo, Billie Jo, and Bobby Jo Bradley following the death of lead actress Bea Benaderet, who played family matriarch Kate (her passing was never addressed on the show).
Throughout the 1970s and ’80s Lockhart was a familiar face on TV and, to a lesser degree, movies. She was on Happy Days, Magnum, P.I., General Hospital, and Full House, among others. She also regularly co-hosted the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants as well as the Tournament of Roses Parade. And she even made a 1989 cameo appearance in The New Lassie. Filmgoers saw June in such diverse efforts as the steamy 1981 drama Butterfly; 1983’s sci-fi spoof Strange Invaders; the 1986 horror/comedy Troll (with her real-life daughter Anne playing her in flashbacks); and Christopher Guest’s 1989 Tinseltown satire The Big Picture.
When New Line made a big-screen Lost in Space reboot in 1998, Lockhart joined ’60s co-stars Angela Cartwright, Mark Goddard, and Marta Kristen in turning up in cameos. She had recurring roles on Step by Step, Beverly Hills, 90210, and The Drew Carey Show, and was still active in film as a grandmother in 2018’s The Remake. Her last acting credit–to date–is as the voice of Alpha Control in the premiere episode of Netflix’s 2018 Lost in Space revival.
Married and divorced twice, June has two daughters–including actress Anne Lockhart–by her first husband. Bill Mumy recalled how his TV mom, a fan of rock music and David Bowie in particular, would take him and “sister” Angela Cartwright to concerts at L.A.’s legendary Whisky a Go Go nightspot. Not surprisingly, Lockhart served as a civilian spokesperson for space exploration and NASA. And in a 1970 appearance on The Virginia Graham Show, the actress challenged the hostess and spoke out against homophobia.
W.C. Fields is famous for allegedly once saying “Never work with animals or children.” Well, June Lockhart made quite a place for herself in American pop culture by thriving at both. And we at MovieFanFare would like to wish one of classic TV’s most beloved moms a happy 100th birthday.