LOS ANGELES — June Lockhart, known for playing the quintessential TV mom in “Lassie” and “Lost in Space,” died of natural causes in her Southern California home this week, her family said Saturday. She was 100.
She died in her home in Santa Monica, California, on Thursday with her daughter June Elizabeth and granddaughter Christianna by her side, the family said in a statement.
In “Lassie,” Lockhart played Ruth Martin, and in “Lost in Space” she played Maureen Robinson. She also played Dr. Janet Craig in “Petticoat Junction.”
Lockhart was long a proponent of the space agency NASA and its mission, and she appeared with pioneering moon-walking astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin when NASA Television won a primetime Emmy Award in 2009.
The ceremony marked the 40th anniversary of the historic live-TV broadcast from the surface of the moon, which captivated the world on July 20, 1969.
“Mommy always considered acting as her craft, her vocation, but her true passions were journalism, politics, science and NASA,” daughter June Elizabeth said in Saturday’s statement.
“She cherished playing her role in ‘Lost in Space’ and she was delighted to know that she inspired many future astronauts, as they would remind her on visits to NASA,” June Elizabeth said. “That meant even more to her than the hundreds of television and movies roles she played.”
Lockhart was born in New York City on June 25, 1925, and began acting at 8 years old with a role in “Peter Ibbetson” at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in 1933, her family said. She had been studying ballet there when producers needed a young actress and chose her to play Mimsy, she once recalled.
Her first film role was in 1938 in “A Christmas Carol,” in which her parents — who were both actors, Gene and Kathleen Lockhart — starred.
She won an Antoinette Perry Award, which would later become the Tony Award, for “best newcomer” after her Broadway performance in “For Love or Money” in 1947.
In a 2004 interview with NPR, Lockhart joked about how one of the most famous “Lost in Space” episodes — “The Great Vegetable Rebellion” — came to be.
“The vegetable rebellion was absolutely the ultimate episode,” she said. “It was in our third year, and it was written by a man named Peter Packer.”
“And he said to me when I last saw him, or within the past year, he said: I had simply run out of ideas,” she said.
The episode features giant sentient vegetables that have taken over a planet, with an actor dressed as an ambulatory carrot who demands retribution for the plucking of a flower.
“We laughed so hard during the shooting of that, that Guy Williams and I were written out of the next two episodes as a disciplinary measure,” she said.
Lockhart was a passionate defender of animal rights, her family said. She supported the Santa Monica Mounted Police Horses and was the national spokesperson for International Hearing Dog Inc.
“Her heart belonged to her grand-Pug Massimo, who was always nearby, and a great source of entertainment,” her family said.
Services will be private, the family said.
