Emmy-nominated actress June Lockhart, the original Space Mom from the iconic television series Lost in Space, is 100 years old today!

In a recent interview, Bill Mumy gave an update on his co-star from Lost in Space:

“I talk to her through her daughter. June is at home. She has two assistants. She’s still in her own home. She follows politics, she reads the news, but she doesn’t talk on the phone and she doesn’t — obviously — she’s not going to put on all her makeup and go out and do a convention or anything anymore, but she’s, well, she’s fine. She’s healthy.”

The Quintessential Mom

June Lockhart was best known for playing wise, loving mothers, She played Dr. Maureen Robinson, mother of Judy, Penny, and Will in Lost in Space. Lockhart played Timmy’s mother on the TV show Lassie.She also played Archie’s mother in Rented Lips(1988). Lockhart voiced Aladdin’s mother in the second English version of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp She continued her career of playing mothers in the biopic Weslry: A Heart Transformed Can Change the World (2009), as Susanna Wesley, the mother of the Rev. John Wesley, the founder of the United Methodist Church, and the Rev. Charles Wesley, who wrote “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” and seventeen other children, nine of whom died as infants.

To my generation, June Lockhart was an essential part of a quartet of women who were the epitome of TV mothers: Florence Henderson as Carol Brady, Shirley J ones as Shirley Partridge, Barbara Billingsley as June Cleaver, and June Lockhart as Ruth Martin and Maureen Robinson. Perhaps she drew on her real life maternal experience to play TV mothers so well. In real life, she and her first husband John F. Maloney had two daughters, Anne Lockhart, who would grow up to play Lt. Sheba on Battlestar Galactica and June E. Maloney, who became an actress under the stage name Elizabeth Lockhart,{ hotel clerk in Just Tell Me You Love Me (1978)}

Personal Data

June Lockhart was born June 25, 1925 in New York City, New York. That makes today her one hundredth birthday.

Lockhart was born a third generation performer, the daughter of actors Gene Lockhart and Kathleen Lockhart and the granddaughter of concert singer John Coates Lockhart. Both her daughters became actresses, continuing the family tradition. She made her film debut in 1938, at the age of thirteen, playing Belinda Crachit in A Christmas Carol. Her parents were playing Bob and Mrs. Crachit.

She married John F. Maloney in 1951. They divorced in 1959. She remarried John Lindsay in 1959. That marriage also ended in divorce in 1970.

Her career so far has spanned over ninety years, so naturally she had many Sci-Fi, fantasy, and horror roles in addition to Lost in Space. She starred in She-Wolf of London as the werewolf. Her most recen two roles were voice roles: Mindy the Owl in Bongee Bear and the Kingdom of Rhythm (2019) and the voice of Alpha Control in the Netflix reboot series of Lost in Space in 2021.

June Lockhart is fond of rock /n/ roll music, especially David Bowie. Bill Mumy (Will Robinson on Lost in Space and Lennier in Babylon 5) remembered she took him and Angela Cartwright (Penny Robinson) to concerts at Hollywood’s Whiskey A-Go-Go. She followed political news closely, as all good citizens should, but followed more closely than most people can manage.

A reporter friend, Pulitzer-Prize winner Merriman Smith arranged for her to accompany Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson during the 1956 presidential election. During the 1960 election, she travelled with both Kennedy and Nixon. Lockhart received a lifetime White House Press Pass in 1957. She took full advantage of this and attended numerous presidential briefings between 1957 and 2004. June Lockhart had a recurring role on Petticoat Junction as Dr. Janet Craig. She had a steady role on General Hospital as Mariah Ramirez. Lockhart made guest appearances on many shows, such as Wagon Train, Have Gun, Will Travel, Perry Mason, and even Magnum PI.

Geek Cred

• Belinda Crachit in A Christmas Carol (1938)
• Phyllis Allenby, in She-Wolf of London (1936)
• Eve Patrick in Science Fiction Theatre
• Dr. Ellen Bryce on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
• Martha Hunter in The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
• Voice of Martha Day in These Are the Days
• Margaret Bigelow in Strange Invaders (1983)
• voice of the mother Peter No-Tail (1081)
• Aladdin’s mother in Aladdin and the Magic Lamp (1982)
• Mrs. Claus in The Night They Saved Christmas (1984)
• Gracie in C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D. (2989)
• Principal Cartwright in Lost in Space (1998)
• Eleanor Beauchamps in Zombie Hamet (2012)

Awards and Honors

June Lockhart had two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for movies, one for television. She earned two Emmy nominations, in 1953 and 1959, both for Lassie. In 1948, Lockhart received a “special Tony Award for Outstanding Performance by a Newcomer (a category that no longer exists) for her role on Broadway in For Love or Money.” In 2013 NASA awarded her Exceptional Public Achievement Award for inspiring the public about space exploration. Lockhart often returned to visit NASA.