Death of June Lockhart, heroine of the series Lassie
Television icon of the 1950s and 1960s, the actress had just celebrated her 100th birthday.
Pioneer of the small screen and television figure for an entire generation, June Lockhart has left us.
Famous for her roles in the series Lassie and Lost in Space, June Lockhart has died at the age of 100. She died of natural causes on Thursday October 23, as confirmed by her daughter June Elizabeth.
“Mom always considered gaming a profession, a vocation. But her true passions were journalism, politics, science and NASA,” her daughter said. “She loved her role in Lost in Space and was thrilled to learn that she had inspired future astronauts, who often reminded her of it during her visits to NASA. This meant even more to her than her hundreds of television and film roles.”
Born in New York in 1925 into a family of actors, June Lockhart started in cinema very early. She took her first steps in the 1940s and stood out in The Song of Missouri alongside Judy Garland, where she played the young Lucille Ballard, before establishing herself on the small screen. In 1958, she played Ruth Martin, Timmy’s mother, in Lassie, a role she played for 200 episodes and which also earned her two Emmy Award nominations.
Seven years later, she played Maureen Robinson, the matriarch of Lost in Space, a cult science fiction series that became emblematic of the 1960s. She filmed 84 episodes there, before joining the sitcom Petticoat Junction in the role of Dr. Janet Craig. In 2021, at age 96, she lent her voice one last time to Alpha Control in the Netflix reboot of Lost in Space, a moving nod to her career. Well before this Netflix reboot, she had already come full circle with a cameo in the film Lost in Space released in 1998.
