June Lockhart

New York City, New York, USA

Biography

June Lockhart (born June 25, 1925) is an American retired actress, beginning a film career in the 1930s and 1940s in such films as A Christmas Carol and Meet Me in St. Louis. She primarily acted in 1950s and 1960s television, and with performances on stage and in film. On two television series, Lassie and Lost in Space, she played mother roles. She also portrayed Dr. Janet Craig on the CBS television sitcom Petticoat Junction (1968–70). She is a two-time Emmy Award nominee and a Tony Award winner. With a career spanning nearly 90 years, she is one of the last surviving actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Description above from the Wikipedia article June Lockhart , licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Movies

Matinee Theater is an American anthology series that aired on NBC during the Golden Age of Television, from 1955 to 1958. The series, which ran daily in the afternoon, was frequently live. It was produced by Albert McCleery, Darrell Ross, George Cahan and Frank Price with executive producer George Lowther. McCleery had previously produced the live series Cameo Theatre which introduced to television the concept of theater-in-the-round, TV plays staged with minimal sets. Jim Buckley of the Pewter Plough Playhouse recalled: When Al McCleery got back to the States, he originated a most ambitious theatrical TV series for NBC called Matinee Theater: to televise five different stage plays per week live, airing around noon in order to promote color TV to the American housewife as she labored over her ironing. Al was the producer. He hired five directors and five art directors. Richard Bennett, one of our first early presidents of the Pewter Plough Corporation, was one of the directors and I was one of the art directors and, as soon as we were through televising one play, we had lunch and then met to plan next week’s show. That was over 50 years ago, and I’m trying to think; I believe the TV art director is his own set decorator —yes, of course! It had to be, since one of McCleery’s chief claims to favor with the producers was his elimination of the setting per se and simply decorating the scene with a minimum of props. It took a bit of ingenuity.

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Matinee Theater
1955