June Lockhart's television image has been so sterile it makes Kate Smith look like a member of the Hell's Angels.In six cotton-frocked years as the mother of Timmy, the principal brat on Lassie, she kissed her husband - her own husband, mind you - a grand total of twice. On the cheek.
She was more intimate with the butter churn.
Moving to Lost in Space, where, at least, she wore formfitting spacesuits, she was requested not to touch affectionately the arm of that husband lest, presumably, the viewers would be sent into convulsions of prurient desire.
Petticoat Junction, her newest assignment, is not, of course, what you call your TV answer to "Fanny Hill." But, in a medium which allows killing 24 hours a day but kissing only after 9:30 P.M., it looks strangely like progress to June Lockhart.
"In Petticoat Junction," she began, "because Paul Henning carries the weight that he does, he's been able to play love scenes with a real sense of the way people behave. He's even had Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor [of Green Acres] in a double bed. That's a major breakthrough!"
Henning is the enormously successful creator of Petticoat Junction and The Beverly Hillbillies and co-creator of Green Acres. Petticoat has been going since 1963, Hillbillies since 1962. He signed June for the show following the death last fall of Bea Benaderet.
"I just wrote Paul after Lost in Space folded," she said, "and said I was looking for a series. I don't know why actors have to play it so coy when they are 'at liberty.' I just send a photograph and try to do it with a little humor."
Henning, for his part, couldn't have been more pleased. "She said she was out of her silver-lame tights and looking for work. Then, when we found that Bea couldn't return, I mentioned June's name to Chuck [Stewart - producer and writer] and Dick Conway [co-writer], and they went for it. And it really struck a spark at CBS. I've been a fan of hers since Lassie. I was the only one who liked her better than the dog."
"I've thought a lot about this," June continued, musing on the laughable sins of television omission. "I accept this attitude because I have to, and I laugh at it. But I think that families should be demonstrably affectionate. There's a lot of hugging and kissing in our family, and my husband never walks behind me without giving me a pat. I suppose it's our Puritan heritage that restrains people from expressing open affection for each other. We were told, on Lost in Space, that people would be embarrassed to see that arm-touching. But you'd think that we could educate them to get used to it.
"I'm very permissive with my own girls, who are 13 and 15, as long as I know what they're doing. I took them to see 'A Man and a Woman' and hope they have that experience. That kind of thing can be very enriching."
Her medical books figure in the greatest piece of type-casting since Flipper was booked as a dolphin. June's role in Petticoat is that of the sophisticated and glamorous Dr. Janet Craig - a lady physician viewed first with distrust and then love by the Hooterville-Pixley axis. As Dr. Craig, she delivers cows and generally cleans up after ol' Doc Stuart (Regis Toomey) the resident sawbones.
As June Lockhart, she has had a consuming interest in medicine since the age of 12, when she "developed a crush on the family doctor." Her parents, the noted actors Gene and Kathleen Lockhart, encouraged this interest (in medicine, not the doctor), and June settled on being a nurse. But the lure of show biz intervened; she was starring on Broadway by the late Forties and has since appeared in more than a thousand TV shows.
However, medicine is not forgotten.
"Oh, I read all the magazines, and diagnose illnesses and even prescribe for my friends. Of course," she hastened to add, "then I refer them to other doctors..." Her hand shot to her mouth. "Ooops, I think I've just blown my subscription to M.D. News."
And what better place to play doctor than when you're playing a doctor?
"For my first show I brought my own props," she said with the exuberance of an 8-year-old at Disneyland. "I brought syringes, and needles, and alcohol, and a stethoscope, aaaannnd, a sphygmomanometer."
A what?
She laughed. "It's for measuring arterial blood pressure. And they let me do the whole thing."
Ralph Levy, the director at the time, when asked about this, muttered darkly, "She does it so professionally we can't use it. We have to give the impression of doing it, but not actually do it." He sighed. "It's like a phone number - if you really dial 7 digits, already the show is over."
As for her Petticoat personality, Levy sees her as possessing "the one-sensible-person quality." She does not try to replace Miss Benaderet but rather has "as image of beautiful stability - a warm, mature but still beautiful woman surrounded by nuts."
She sees herself "as, I suppose, an intelligent woman with a sense of humor." A stranger sees a friendly, gracious, unpretentious person with an enormous fund of poise, practicality, generosity and not a little mischievousness. A smile is as much a part of her makeup as her makeup, which is impeccable; her speech is measured, her pronunciation is precise. She is an observer of things and a muller of ideas. She is tranquil, not likely to lose her temper or shoot off her mouth. She avoids involvement in issues of public controversy and will not be found stumping for a politician of signing an ad to legalize abortion.
"When I was going to auditions in my teens, I learned not to expend all my energy on worrying about them, or I wouldn't have any left for the actual readings," she reminisced. "I'm fairly objective and can take a long view by saying, 'Twenty years from now it won't matter anyway.'"
Hollywood, she says, is a place she is in but not of. She does not discuss religion for print, although "You can say I have a very liberal attitude about it." And her interest in politics, while intense, is that of the observer.
"I love to go out campaigning with the press, just for my own interest and edification. I've been on campaigns for Nixon, Stevenson and Eisenhower. There are two schools of thought on this. I know, but I don't really believe that actors make the best politicians. Nor dancers," she added dryly, "for that matter. I was so glad to see, with Shirley Temple Black running, that logic did prevail.
"I don't vote a party ticket, or come out for this or that. Maybe it's a hangover from the old days of actors not being vocal about their preferences. I don't know. I just prefer not to do it. I remember the Tenney Committee and the Unfriendly Ten, and all that. I guess it's just protective."
She is no less cautious in business matters.
"I've learned not to be impulsive. I've had to learn to weigh carefully contracts and deals and negotiations. It's funny. No matter how many different jobs you've had, no matter how clever you think you've been, you can still get stuck. Now, I keep lists - lists of what to ask for, lists of what to avoid..."
The svelte actress enjoys acting, and the money, but thinks in terms of craft, not art, and has no pretensions about saving the world through Stanislavsky.
"I've really learned what I know through experience and from my father. We used to go to movies together, and the next day, when I'd get home from school, there'd be a note on my bed - a really thorough analysis of what we had seen. Later then, I knew what to look for and I absorbed by osmosis.
"Ideally, I think every actress in the business wants to be Barbara Bain on Mission: Impossible. It's a marvelous role with great variety. But I like Petticoat Junction. My main point is to do a series that will stay on the air."
She was asked how she thought she would be assessed as an actress, in retrospect.
"Apparently, whatever my image is to the television viewer, I guess I'm a highly salable commodity." Big smile. "They'll probably say, 'She did damn good mother parts.'"
