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June Lockhart, the beloved actress who starred in Lassie and Lost in Space, has died. She was 100. One of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood, Lockhart passed away Thursday, October 23, at 9:20 p.m. in Santa Monica, Calif., People confirmed. Her daughter, June Elizabeth, and granddaughter, Christianna, were by her side. The cause of death was natural causes. Funeral services will be private, and Lockhart’s family has asked for donations to The Actors Fund, ProPublica, and International Hearing Dog, Inc., in lieu of flowers. Born in 1925 in New York City to actors Gene and Kathleen Lockhart, June made her stage debut at just eight years old in a Metropolitan Opera production of Peter Ibbetson. Her first film role came in 1938’s A Christmas Carol, appearing alongside her parents. “I thought my parents were wonderful as the Cratchits, and it was just great fun to see how a film was made,” she told the Ames Tribune in 2014. “I loved the Victorian costumes.” She added that her first movie line — “I know, I know — sausages” — became a running family joke. “It’s become a family joke, and we all shriek with laughter when we watch it now,” she said. Lockhart’s early film work included All This, and Heaven Too, Sergeant York, and Meet Me in St. Louis. She later won a Tony Award for her Broadway debut in For Love or Money in 1947. “I like it all, but I think the hardest to do is theater,” she told the Chicago Tribune in 1987. By the 1950s, she was a familiar face on early television, appearing in Hallmark Hall of Fame, Wagon Train, and Gunsmoke. “I loved the period costumes with the long gowns and their cinched-in waists,” she told the Burlington County Times in 2015. Her career-defining role came in 1958, when she joined Lassie as Ruth Martin, earning two Emmy nominations. “My own mother might forget my birthday, but June never does,” co-star Jon Provost told People in 1994. In 1965, she swapped the farm for the cosmos, starring as Maureen Robinson on Lost in Space. “I did Lassie for six years, and I never had anybody come up to me and say, ‘It made me want to be a farmer,’” she joked to NPR in 2004. Lockhart went on to appear in Petticoat Junction, Murder, She Wrote, Full House, and Roseanne — which she called “the highlight of my career.” Offscreen, she was as adventurous as she was iconic. “I love rock ‘n’ roll and going to concerts,” she told The Chicago Tribune in 1994. “I have driven army tanks and flown in hot-air balloons, and I go plane-gliding — the ones with no motors.” A longtime NASA supporter, she received the agency’s Exceptional Public Achievement Medal in 2014. “I’ve been to two space shuttle launches and worked with NASA since the 1970s,” she told The Denver Gazette. “So I’m absolutely thrilled by this recognition. No other actress has received this honor.” Lockhart is survived by her daughters, Anne and June Elizabeth — and by decades of television history that continue to orbit her legacy.
