While listening to the BBC News on New York's public radio station WNYC-AM 820, I heard that the TV actress June Lockhart (Lassie and Lost in Space) had died at the age of 100. The mention of her death brought to mind the time I had proofread Cloris Leachman's memoir, Cloris, for Kensington Books in 2008 or 2009 and pointed out a factual error.
In the manuscript, Leachman said that she replaced June Lockhart as the mother on Lassie. For verification, I went to The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, 1946-Present by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh (Ballantine Books, 1979). I found out it was the other way around--Lockhart had replaced her on the show. I then corrected the error with my red pencil, citing the source of the correct information.
Leachman, in her 80s when the memoir was about to come out, obviously had a lapse of memory. (The book, it should be noted, was actually ghostwritten by her ex-husband, the film director George Englund, who later died in 2017.)
**I previously wrote about this subject for the blog on February 17, 2021. To see this blog post, click on "Cloris Leachman" in the Labels section below.
