“Lassie” and “Lost in Space” star June Lockhart died of natural causes in her Southern California home this week, her family said Saturday. She was 100.
Lockhart played the mother roles in the two popular TV series, but she also won what is now called a Tony Award early in her career in the Broadway production “For Love or Money.”
She died at 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,” 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.
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, for “best newcomer” after her Broadway performance in “For Love or Money” in 1947.
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