Posted on 10/25/2025 10:12:47 PM PDT by Morgana
LOS ANGELES (AP) - June Lockhart, who became a mother figure for a generation of television viewers whether at home in "Lassie" or up in the stratosphere in "Lost in Space," has died. She was 100.
Lockhart died Thursday of natural causes at her home in Santa Monica, family spokesman Lyle Gregory, a friend of 40 years, said Saturday.
"She was very happy up until the very end, reading the New York Times and LA Times everyday," he said. "It was very important to her to stay focused on the news of the day."
The daughter of prolific character actor Gene Lockhart, Lockhart was cast frequently in ingenue roles as a young film actor. Television made her a star.
From 1958 to 1964, she portrayed Ruth Martin, who raised the orphaned Timmy (Jon Provost), in the popular CBS series "Lassie." From 1965 to 1968, she traveled aboard the spaceship Jupiter II as mother to the Robinson family in the campy CBS adventure "Lost in Space."
Her portrayals of warm, compassionate mothers endeared her to young viewers, and decades later baby boomers flocked to nostalgia conventions to meet Lockhart and buy her autographed photos.
Offscreen, Lockhart insisted, she was nothing like the women she portrayed.
"I must quote Dan Rather," she said in a 1994 interview. "I can control my reputation, but not my image, because my image is how you see me.
"I love rock `n´ roll and going to the concerts. I have driven Army tanks and flown in hot air balloons. And I go plane-gliding - the ones with no motors. I do a lot of things that don´t go with my image."
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Very nice lady. I did a phone interview with her regarding her guest appearance on Branded. She kept a journal that allowed her to recall facts about such things. Too bad she never transformed it into an autobiography. I’m sure it would have been fascinating.
I don’t think that I’ll be watching them All, LOL!
How can someone be happy when reading the New Yor or LA Times?
Oops...the circulation of the NY Times and LA Times just got halved. 😀
I saw her once in the Art Deco bar on the Queen Mary. We waved and gave thumbs up. She smiled and waved back. Classy lady.
“I love rock n roll and going to concerts” I read somewhere once where she invited the Allman Brothers onto the set while they were filming an episode.
Check
R.I.P.
A classy lady and a fine actress.
Just another bittersweet reminder of a nearly vanished America.
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