(Read) American actress June Kathleen Lockhart started working in movies in the 1930s

 

American actress June Kathleen Lockhart (June 25, 1925 – October 23, 2025) started her acting career in the 1930s and 1940s, appearing in movies including Meet Me in St. Louis and A Christmas Carol. She mostly made appearances on television in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as in theater and movie productions. She portrayed mothers in the television shows Lassie and Lost in Space. Additionally, from 1968 to 1970, Lockhart played Dr. Janet Craig in the CBS sitcom Petticoat Junction. She won a Tony Award and was nominated for two Emmy Awards . Lockhart was one of the last performers from Hollywood's Golden Age to still be active, having worked for almost 90 years.

On June 25, 1925, June Lockhart was born in New York City. Her parents were Kathleen Lockhart (née Arthur), an English actress, and Gene Lockhart, a Canadian-American actor who made his Broadway debut in Ah, Wilderness! in 1933.  "A concert-singer" John Coates Lockhart was her grandfather. 

Lockhart attended the Westlake School for Girls in Beverly Hills, California. 

In 1938, Lockhart starred opposite her parents in a motion picture adaptation of A Christmas Carol. [6] [7] She also had supporting roles in the films The Yearling (1946), All This, and Heaven Too (1940), Sergeant York (1941), and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944).  She was a major character in Son of Lassie (1945), a theme she extensively re-examined in the television series Lassie over a decade later.  She was She-Wolf of London's top-billed star (1946). 

Lockhart made an appearance in the fantasy movie Troll in 1986.  Her daughter, Anne Lockhart, played the younger version of her character in that movie.  In the "Lest We Forget" episode of the television series Magnum, P.I. (1981), they had already portrayed the same woman at two different ages. 

At the age of eight, Lockhart made her stage debut as Mimsey in the Metropolitan Opera's Peter Ibbetson.  She emerged from her parents' shadow in 1947 after starring in For Love or Money, earning her recognition as "a promising movie actress in her own right." According to one newspaper report, "June Lockhart has burst on Broadway with the suddenness of an unpredicted comet." 

Lockhart costarred with Tom Ewell in Lawrence Riley's biographical drama Kin Hubbard in 1951.

Lockhart made an appearance on a 1955 episode of Appointment with Adventure on CBS. During this period, she also appeared on multiple episodes of Justice, an NBC legal drama based on the New York Legal Aid Society's case files. Lockhart made appearances as a guest star in a number of well-known television Westerns in the late 1950s, including Rawhide on CBS, Gunsmoke, Have Gun – Will Travel on NBC, and Wagon Train (in the episode "The Ricky and Laura Bell Story") and Cimarron City (in the episode "Medicine Man" with Gary Merrill) on NBC.

In 1958, Lockhart narrated the transmission of the New York City Ballet and George Balanchine's adaptation of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, in which Balanchine played the role of Drosselmeyer.

In the 1950s CBS series Lassie, Lockhart was also well-known for her portrayals of TV mothers. She initially portrayed Ruth Martin, the wife of Paul Martin (Hugh Reilly) and the mother of Timmy Martin (Jon Provost) from 1958 to 1964. She took the place of actress Cloris Leachman, who had previously performed a similar role in the series as Jan Clayton. Lockhart appeared as defendant Mona Stanton Harvey in "The Case of the Scandalous Sculptor" on Perry Mason after her five-year stint on Lassie. After that, Lockhart played Dr. Maureen Robinson in the 1965–1968 CBS series Lost in Space, costarring with seasoned actors Jonathan Harris and Guy Williams.

Lockhart appeared in the 1965 episode "Magic Locket" of the syndicated Western series Death Valley Days, portraying librarian Ina Coolbrith, California's first poet laureate. Then, on the last two seasons of the CBS sitcom Petticoat Junction (1968–1970), she played Dr. Janet Craig. Her role was introduced to fill the vacuum left by Bea Benaderet's death during the show's run. Lockhart voiced Martha Day, the main character in the Hanna-Barbera animated series These Are the Days on ABC in the 1970s, and was a regular in the ABC serial opera General Hospital in the 1980s and 1990s.

Lockhart served as a hostess for six years on the Miss USA Pageant, six years on the Miss Universe Pageant, eight years on the Tournament of Roses Parade, and five years on the Thanksgiving Parade on CBS.

Lockhart made an appearance in the television sitcom Full House in 1991 as Michelle Tanner's kindergarten teacher, Miss Wiltrout. Additionally, she made a brief appearance in the 1998 movie Lost in Space, which was adapted from the television show in which she had appeared thirty years prior. She costarred with fellow TV mom Marion Ross, who played Drew's mother, in two episodes of The Drew Carey Show in 2002 as Lewis' mother, Misty Kiniski.

Lockhart provided the voice of Grandma Emma Fowler in the audio cases of The Last Chance Detectives on Focus on the Family in 2004. In a Las Vegas episode, Lockhart played James Caan's mother. Since then, she has been in Cold Case and Grey's Anatomy, the 2007 ABC Family television movie Holiday in Handcuffs, and the 2007 feature film Wesley as Susanna Wesley, the mother of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism.

Filming on Tesla Effect, a video game that blends live-action video with three-dimensional graphics, started in May 2014.

Lockhart's performance in the Broadway production of For Love or Money earned her a Special Tony Award in 1948 for Outstanding Performance by a Newcomer, a category that no longer exists. [11] In 2008, Lockhart gave her Tony Award to the Smithsonian Institution so that it might be shown in the National Museum of American History's permanent entertainment archives.


Lockhart received two Emmy nominations. She received a nomination for Best Actress in 1953.  For her performance in Lassie, she received a nomination in 1959 for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Continuing Character) in a Dramatic Series. 

The Hollywood Walk of Fame features two stars for Lockhart: one for television (6362 Hollywood Boulevard) and one for motion movies (6323 Hollywood Boulevard). February 8, 1960, saw the dedication of both. [13] She received the Exceptional Public Achievement Medal from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 2013 for educating the public about space exploration.

Lockhart wed John F. Maloney in 1951. June Elizabeth and Anne Kathleen were their two daughters. 1959 saw the couple's divorce. [15] In the same year, she wed architect John Lindsay; however, they separated in October 1970, and she never got married again. In 1985, Lockhart, a Roman Catholic, met Pope John Paul II with her daughter Anne and actress Kay Lenz. 

American presidential candidates and the media's portrayal of them have always captivated Lockhart. She traveled with both major-party candidates, Adlai Stevenson and Dwight D. Eisenhower, during the 1956 presidential election and again with both campaigns in the 1960 race thanks to arrangements made by her friend, reporter Merriman Smith. Lockhart attended numerous presidential briefings from 1957 to 2004. 

Lockhart loved rock music and listened to up-and-coming rock bands despite being a member of the Greatest Generation. According to her Lost in Space co-star Bill Mumy, she took him and Angela Cartwright to Hollywood's Whisky a Go Go nightclub "to hang out with The Allman Brothers Band" during an interview. [20] Lockhart questioned Graham about her moralizing tone toward gay people during her 1970 appearance on The Virginia Graham Show alongside Art Metrano and LGBT clergyman Troy Perry. 

Lockhart turned 100 years old on June 25, 2025. 

Lockhart passed away at her Santa Monica, California, home on October 23, 2025.