June Lockhart (Lassie, Lost in Space) defends gay people on Virginia Graham’s talk show in 1970.

That's cool that she was vocally pro-gay when a lot of people (even very liberal ones) were not

Reverend Troy Perry later came out as gay and married his partner.

Troy Perry was a hottie and now I love June even more than before!

I didn't know she was still alive. I never missed Lassie when I was a kid.

Didn’t June Lockhart do Depends commercials?

[quote]That's cool that she was vocally pro-gay when a lot of people (even very liberal ones) were not

And she has a Judy connection.

I think you’re thinking of June Allyson.

The "queer community"?

Are they still trying to promote that horrible word?

^ If it passes off Log Cabinettes then it's not horrible

What a wonderful person-Love her in “Lost in space” and she was in 1939 “A Christmas Carol “ with her very own parents playing her parents as Cratchit family. (Gene/Kathleen Lockhart)

Virginia Graham was born in 1912 & died in 1998 at age 86 so she's about 58 in this clip.

That was a surprisingly respectful conversation.

In the next clip, June reveals that Lassie was played in drag and why that was rather fabulous.

In the next clip, June puts Virginia in a headlock & threatens to eject her into space.

Anyone with those sideburns cannot be taken seriously.

^ Mind your own business.

Troy's sideburns >>> Virginia's hair

At first I thought one of the women on the couch was Phyllis Shlafey.

In interviews, Bill Mumy says June was one of the most intelligent people he's ever known, and that she was always very engaged in government/policits and the world situation. Also a serious rock and roll head banger.

Long life to her!

June co-hosted the Miss USA Pageant on television for several years but was fired for her slutty lifestyle. In her day Timmy's mom could get it.

I have always liked her, and even more now.

She played a character named TWINK in The Yearling.

For those of you who don’t know who Virginia Graham is, she was an early talk show host from the ‘50s to the ‘70s. Considering she talked with and socialized with many different kinds of people it’s surprising that she seems to be the only one on the show with an issue with being gay.

Interesting, too, that June Lockhart gets applause after her comment. This was 1970 after all. There’d begin a huge backlash against the gay community in the early ‘80s when the AIDS epidemic would start.

[quote]June co-hosted the Miss USA Pageant on television for several years but was fired for her slutty lifestyle.

Actually, that was me.

As a kid I wanted to be gay with Mark Goddard. I’m glad June would have been supportive

God, Virginia was an absolute cunt in that segment, and June was a delight.

Plot twist: Lassie was non-binary.

June gets her point across in such a lovely, gentle manner. Virginia Graham was a slob.

June was a nepo baby -what does DL say about that?

just fabulous

Westlake School for Girls, class of 1943:

July bump for June.

If I could think of that Judy Garland tribute that's in every Judy thread I would post it with June's name inserted instead.

And I'm pretty sure she played Donna Martin's (Tori Spelling) grandma on Beverly Hills 90210.

Eunice St. Clair

She played Felicia's Aztec Treasure hoarding grandma on General Hospital.

She got lovelier as she aged (any work notwithstanding).

Virginia Graham was not very enlightened especially for someone who said she has "several homosexual friends."

[quote]Virginia Graham was not very enlightened

Surprises me too, r37.

I saw June Lockhart when I saw “The Boy From Oz” on Broadway… to honor either Peter Allen or Hugh Jackman, she was wearing an animal print blouse and skin tight oxblood leather pants. She was dancing in the aisle during the curtain call! At 79!

June Lockhart is a Tony winner.

After being dumped by Helen Lawson, lonely Joan is rumored to have convinced a reluctant Virginia to take a dip in the lady pond.

Virginia Graham fell down once and broke her hair.

Looking at her, there can be absolutely no doubt that Aqua Net contained vinyl chloride....

June has always also been extremely interested and participating in our country’s political and scientific developments and accomplishments. A very bright and spirited lady, as well as an understated and perhaps underappreciated actor (not to mention, a classic rock music junkie in her day!).

June Lockhart is a fine woman who aged wonderfully.

And just for fun: Mark Goddard lived his retirement in Bridgewater, MA on the same street as my old maid aunts. He loved their pilaf and had no idea who he was until I explained.

That Virginia Graham is such a nasty old cunt.

R20 So she was fired for being a Runaround Sue?

When I was working at the Museum of Television and Radio, we did a Lost in Space retrospective. We had the surviving cast for a screening followed by Q and A. We were told to keep June Lockhart and Jonathan Harris away from each other. They hated one and other.

She called him "the old man," and he called her "the whore of Babylon."

We were supposed to screen the unaired pilot, which Harris is not in. But, someone put the wrong tape in, and the aired pilot started. June Lockhart got out of her seat and complained out of earshot of the audience.

The tape stopped maybe 7 minutes in, and they played the unaired pilot. The one without Harris. She'd told them she only agreed to appear with the unaired pilot.

A funny postscript to this- my mom's best friend from college married Mark Goddard, who'd played Don West. I made sure to seek him out and introduce myself before the show. Well, Mark was already 3 sheets to the wind, as there was an open bar. By the time the screening was over, and the q & a started, he was falling down drunk. I swear to God, the man literally fell out of his chair. Everyone just tried to ignore it, but it was a wild scene in Beverly Hills.

Only later did I find out about the murder of Karyn Kupcinet. Had I know at the time I would've asked him about discovering her body.

June seems more high maintenance than I thought.

It's had to picture her being into all that hard rock in her 60's-matron hairdo.

Did she have a nose job? Earlier, she seemed to have her dad's somewhat canine shnozz.

I remember her from General Hospital. Tony Geary said that June was a cunt. And he doesn’t like cunts.

[quote]Tony Geary said that June was a cunt

Tony called her an alluring minx, r50.

R51 That's quite a difference...

Barbara Walters often cited Virginia Graham as an influence for her creation of the View. I guess having a few cunts sitting around arguing isn't new.

Troy Perry was the minister that helped the victims of the Upstairs Lounge fire in New Orleans after so many died.

Takes a lot to shock me but Virginia Graham being anti-gay did it.

Good for June! Timmy would be proud...

This is great!

Sadly, so many (even a lot of DL posters), still seem to be espousing Graham’s bigoted views.

Love Rev. Perry.

Rev. Troy Perry is 83 and looks quite healthy for his age.

My God, who cares about Virginia Graham?

I wasn't the only bitch on "Lassie."

Virginia Graham’s pussy stunk!

I was hot for the dad on Lost in Space.

[quote]I was hot for the dad on Lost in Space.

He was also Zorro.

June played Liz Taylor grown up in The White Hills of Dover 1944.

Guy Williams was a Henry Wilson boy. I wonder if you had to sleep with him even if you were straight to get him to represent you.

She played Dinky Hocker’s mother in Dinky Hocker ( 1978) on the ABC After School Special.

I always knew there was a reason to love June.

June was good as the rather cold mother of Wendy Jo Sperber.

People forget that Virginia Graham voiced the view of the majority of Americans in 1970. She might have known a handful of "homosexuals" then, but she voiced her belief that we were not "normal." She believed homosexuality was pathological. And when she opines about not discussing her personal life, that even resonates sometimes today, when straight people still think of us in terms of acts rather than identity.

This show aired in 1970. It's three years before homosexuality was removed from the DSM as a disorder. And only a year after Stonewall

June Lockhart was better educated and more enlightened than Graham. Thank God for the theatre community and the film and television industry. Yes, there were those like Graham. And then there were those like Lockhart (as well as the guy next to her on the couch). The latter were at the forefront of acceptance.

Liked her as Maureen Robinson. I paid more attention to her husband John and Major West on weekday afternoons when "Lost in Space" was in syndication. But I fell in love with her, after watching OP's clip!

I fell i n love with her washing machine that took three seconds to wash, iron, fold, and wrap in plastic each item.

[quote] Guy Williams was a Henry Wilson boy. I wonder if you had to sleep with him even if you were straight to get him to represent you.

R65: Per Robert Hofler, author of “The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson,” it wasn’t essential, but the author also mentions a number of leading men that wouldn’t be represented by Willson out of concern they might be thought to be gay. It seems that Willson thrived on power and influence any way he could get it.

R67- Me too. The weather is beautiful by then.

[quote]the author also mentions a number of leading men that wouldn’t be represented by Willson out of concern they might be thought to be gay.

And end up with a name like Rock or Tab or Clunk.

R73 Yes, Willson had a narrow idea of what was a manly name for a male leading man; he may have been overcompensating as a (somewhat) closeted homosexual of that era.

Tab Hunter says in the video version of his autobiography he didn't do anything with Willson, he says something like, Why would I? I wasn't attracted to him. He says Willson made a pass at him. As far as I remember.

(Hunter wasn't discovered by Willson and had already been represented by Dick Clayton, I think.)

Sorry to keep posting (I woke up and started looking at DL and there's no one around)...but I felt June Lockhart was very familiar, growing up. First, she was the mother on Lassie, a show I really, really liked. Then Lassie morphed into another type of show where Lassie left home and wandered around, getting into different adventures (sort of like the original movie, Lassie Come Home, from the 1940s)--June Lockhart narrated that. Then she was on Lost In Space, another show I loved. All of this was before I was 10. Then she was the doctor character (who sort-of replaced the late Bea Benaderet) on another show I always watched: Petticoat Junction. That went off the air when I was 12. It's hard to picture any other female TV star who was in my consciousness as much as JL. Other than Lucille Ball--but that was different, because she stood out, while Lockhart sort of blended in--always calmly there.

...In fact, even though I'm sure June (who gained some fame on Broadway) made a lot of money and was successful doing TV, I have to wonder now whether, as an actress, she wasn't bored with the quiet, unemotional, straight-arrow mom-type roles she always was cast in. Never getting a chance to do much interesting acting.

R77- I was a gayling in the early 1970's who had a crush/attraction on little Timmy on the Lassie show. Watching the show on WPIX in 1972- even then I knew I was watching an old show and that the little boy was all grown up and I could never be friends with him or anything. It was a bit melancholy or bittersweet.

The only TV character I remember having a crush on (if it was that) was Luke Halpin on Flipper. I couldn't figure out if I was jealous, or hero-worshipped him, or if it was something else. I had somewhat confusing emotions about it. I wasn't very self-aware. I also had some kind of crush on the statuesque showgirls (or June Taylor dancers--I forget) who brought Jackie Gleason his "coffee" on his show. But I also liked their satiny clothes. Ever since I was little I had a fetish or whatever for the feel of satin, and maybe I wanted to cross-dress, I don't know. Never did. I wish I was as clear cut on my childhood fantasies as some of you. (Sorry--late for my appointment with my shrink.)

She was in ‘’Son of Lassie’’1945.She was cute and sweet-Peter Lawford’s love interest.Not a great film.

Speaking of Jackie Gleason (R-80) recently discovered he was like Ellen-Crazy Tyrant.

R82 Don't put a dash after the "R", just R plus the post number. Or else the person (me) won't get a notification.

I'd like to give a shout out to the June Taylor Dancers.

...in heaven.

[quote] Anyone with those sideburns cannot be taken seriously.

I liked the sideburns.

GIRL TALK

Do dee do dee

Da dah da da da da da

Thanks-R-83-Will remember that.

R88 You didn't do it!

So why is that violinist not really playing? He couldn't do it live for TV? He had to be synced? Anyway I with the Bolshoi had kept it in their rep.

Evil Western cultural appropriation from June with a bit of gay soft porn thrown in.

June is quite a pistol. Adore the woman.

R91 I assume you mean Taylor, not Lockhart

Awww June is a fabulous human being <3

Thanks OP. I really enjoyed this thread.

You’re welcome, R95. I thought the video was cool. It’s important we remember our past.

If you look up “yenta” in the dictionary you’ll see a picture of Virginia Graham.

You look up "Yentl" guess who you'll see then...

Watching that Match Game clip, June and Swoosie Kurtz should have played mother and daughter. Their voices sound similar, and they have the same big eyes, and pinchable cheeks… although if you pinched Swoosie’s cheeks these days, her noggin would explode.

100!

Not until next June 25th.

^^^ Yes, Rose.

Has anyone ever seen Time Limit (1957)? It's a good movie directed by Karl Malden, starring Richard Widmark as an Army lawyer and Richard Basehart as a soldier accused of collaborating with the enemy during the Korean War. (Filmed on Governor's Island, NYC.) Lockhart plays Basehart's wife. I waited to see what kind of characterization she would come up with. But she was just "June Lockhart," with her usual well-enunciated speech, as far as I recall.

She let Virginia HAVE IT…what a cunt Virginia was. And that awful beehive of hers.

I've never heard of "Time Limit," but will track it down. I didn't know Malden had worked as a director. It sounds similar to "The Rack" (1955), which isn't the greatest movie, but is worth seeing for the brilliant performance by young Paul Newman.

R105 A bit similar but with a different twist. Malden's only film as director. Here's the movie:

R106 June is actually very good in it, I watched it again, I forgot.