General Hospital Alum June Lockhart, Star of Lassie and Lost in Space, Dies At 100
June Lockhart, the Tony Award-winning actress whose career flourished in the Golden Age of Hollywood, passed away on Thursday, October 23 in Santa Monica, CA at the age of 100, People reports. General Hospital fans will remember her from her recurring role as Maria (pronounced “Mariah”) Ramirez, Felicia Cummings’s (Kristina Wagner) loving grandmother, which she began playing in 1984.
Screen Legend
Born in New York City in 1925, Lockhart’s parents, Gene Lockhart and Kathleen Arthur Lockhart, were both actors themselves — remarkably, they met when Thomas Edison hired them to perform on a tour promoting his latest inventions — and she was only 8 years old when she made her professional debut in a production of Peter Ibbetson at the Metropolitan Opera. She recalled to Soap Opera Digest in 2015, “When the opportunities [to act] presented themselves, my father said, ‘Just do it for the experience and learn the discipline of being on a set. When you grow up and you want to do it as a career, then fine.’ That really gave me a lovely perspective.”
At the age of 9, Lockhart, an only child, and her parents relocated to the West Coast. “Daddy came out to begin his career with MGM and then Warner Bros.,” Lockhart shared with Digest. “I have all kinds of wonderful memories of living in and around Hollywood. On Saturdays, my girlfriend and I would be dropped off on the boulevard, go to a movie and at the end of the day, we would be picked up at C.C. Brown’s Hot Fudge Sundae Emporium by Grauman’s Theatre.”
Lockhart’s career began to take off as well, with roles in movies like 1938’s A Christmas Carol (her parents played Mr. and Mrs. Cratchit), All This And Heaven Too (in which her on-screen mother was Bette Davis) and Sergeant York (alongside Gary Cooper). During her senior year of high school, she inked a contract with MGM.
One particularly memorable film she did for MGM was the lavish musical Meet Me In St. Louis with Judy Garland. “She was quite extraordinary,” Lockhart told Digest, who recalled, “We would all come in early morning, get into makeup and wardrobe, and then we waited and waited, but Judy wouldn’t show up. After lunch, they would say, ‘Well, Judy is not coming in today, you can all go home.’ The next day, it was the same thing. Finally, she came in and she was fabulous. She was funny, knew her lines and we shot the scenes with absolutely no problems. We were just in awe of her.”
Television soon became an even bigger focus of Lockhart’s professional life. At first, she eschewed starring roles (“I was happy just being a guest star,” she explained to Digest), but that all changed when the producers of Lassie were recasting the role of matriarch Ruth Martin, played at the time by Cloris Leachman. Lockhart was offered the role, but turned it down — twice — as she was living in New York at the time. She moved back to L.A. while in the throes of a divorce, and, she recounted to Digest, “I was stopped at a red light. Along-side me pulls up [Lassie Producer] Bonita Granville and [Director] Bob Golden, both of whom I had known since I was 12 years old. Bob called out, ‘I wish you would do Lassie!’ I said I would for a year and he came back with, ‘That’s not long enough!’ As I was driving home I thought, ‘What am I being so grand about? Here is a show that has a following, fully sponsored, CBS loves it and it just dropped in my lap again!’ I had two children to support, so I called my agent to see what they were offering as far as salary and what the job would involve. And that’s how it happened.”
After a five-year run as Ruth, another matriarch role came calling: Maureen on Lost in Space. Lockhart, who herself was passionate about aviation and space exploration, was proud of the show’s legacy, telling Digest, “Many astronauts have said to me that watching Lost in Space as a little boy or girl made them realize what they wanted to do when they grew up.”
Lockhart made her soap debut on GH while it was being executive-produced by the legendary Gloria Monty. “What a treat!” is how she summed up her Port Charles experience to Digest. “I had never done a soap opera, even though I watched them from time to time, and the casting man wanted me for Maria. I came in, talked to Gloria Monty and that was it. I started work the next Friday, with a lot of lines and no rehearsal.”
The actress overlapped on GH in the mid-1980s with Mark Goddard, who played Don West on Lost in Space and was hired by Monty to play Derek Barrington. Lockhart confided to Digest, “For Felicia and Frisco’s [Jack Wagner] wedding [in 1986], I really wanted Mark and I to pass each other, stop, turn around, look at each other and shake our heads, like, ‘No, I must be mistaken.’ Gloria laughed, but said, ‘You’re not going to do that.’ I said, ‘Okay, but could we dance together?’ and she said yes. So, in a scene you can see us dancing in the background.”
Lockhart made her last GH appearance as Maria in 2000, but her legacy on the show lives on in her granddaughter, Maxie, whose full name is Mariah Maximilliana Jones and was named after Felicia’s grandmother and grandfather, Maxmillian.
The actress also appeared on prime-time soaps, playing Mary Robeson on Knots Landing in 1985, Dr. Sylvia Heywood on The Colbys in 1986 and Celia Martin (grandmother of Tori Spelling’s Donna Martin) on Beverly Hills, 90210.
Digest sends its condolences to Lockhart’s family and friends.
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