From the current SUMMER 2024 Issue

From books to movies to television to radio

THE MANY LIVES OF LASSIE

By Russell Tonks

For more than 80 years, she’s been one of the most iconic four-legged figures in popular culture. She’s lived a dog’s life yet seems to have more lives than the proverbial cat, having conquered the worlds of books, films, television, cartoons, toys, comics, radio… even video games. To this day, anyone who adopts a Rough Collie likely does so with her in mind.

It’s hard to imagine anyone being so universally beloved, but then again, Lassie isn’t just anyone.

Although the brave-hearted Lassie we know and love is a work of fiction, it appears that there was a real-life antecedent from the first World War. According to author Nigel Clarke, there was a half-breed collie in the English village of West Dorset who helped save the life of an English sailor after his ship (the Formidable) had been torpedoed by a German submarine.

In what might be a strange coincidence, author Elizabeth Gaskell is credited with creating the first collie named Lassie back in 1859, when her story “The Half-Brothers” was published in the literary journal Dublin University Magazine. In this story, Lassie attempts to rescue two brothers who are lost in a snowstorm. Despite her heroic efforts, she is only able to save one.

The fictional Lassie that people know and love first appeared in a 1938 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, in a story by author Eric Knight. Two years later, Knight expanded his story into a full-length novel, Lassie Come Home. Given that it was published during the same month as the Battle of Dunkirk (a particularly challenging time for Great Britain and those who supported her), this novel of love and perseverance in the face of difficult odds quickly became a worldwide bestseller, which brought it to the attention of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios.

MGM’s version of Lassie Come Home was released in 1943. The story — about a family that must sell their beloved dog and the dog’s arduous journey to reunite with them — starred a young Roddy McDowell, along with an even younger Elizabeth Taylor and such seasoned character actors as Nigel Bruce (Dr. Watson to Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes), Donald Crisp, Dame May Whitty, Elsa Lanchester and Edmund Gwenn, the future Kris Kringle.

Lassie herself was played by Pal, who was actually a male but possessed what one writer described as the “near human attributes” that director Fred Wilcox wanted. The movie was a tremendous success; critic Bosley Crowther lauded its “poignance and simple beauty” and audiences were similarly moved.

If moviegoers couldn’t get enough of Lassie, Hollywood wasn’t going to let them down; over the next decade, the multitalented Pal played the heroic dog in another six films. The most memorable of these sequels was Son of Lassie, a 1945 offering that genuinely taps into the emotional toll that the war was taking on everyone. Released just a few weeks before Germany’s surrender, the film starred Peter Lawford and June Lockhart. The latter would become very familiar with this four-footed character a decade later…

Lassie returned to the big screen in 1946 for Courage of Lassie, although top billing went to now-14-year-old Elizabeth Taylor. In this film, Pal plays Bill, a descendant of Lassie who is found in a forest and later becomes a war hero of sorts during the Aleutian Islands Campaign. (In another sign of things to come, the opening scenes of the film involve an old man played by George Cleveland — who played the part of Grandpa Miller on the Lassie television series.)

Curiously, in subsequent films, Lassie was re-named to indicate that the dog was either a descendant of the original Lassie or was the same dog with a new family. In Son of Lassie, the dog is named Laddie; for 1951’s The Painted Hills, he’s called Shep.

There was no such confusion on radio, where The Lassie Show debuted over ABC in June 1947 (moving to NBC the following year), sponsored exclusively by Red Heart Dog Food and Treats. Each 15-minute broadcast began with the show’s theme (“Comin’ Through the Rye”) played on the organ, followed by announcer Charlie Lyon introducing “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s lovable motion picture star” and “the world’s most famous dog!”

Remarkably, Pal was on hand to play Lassie on radio, just as he had in the movies. Pal’s trainer, Rudd Weatherwax, narrated the stories and directed Pal when the script called for barking, panting or whining. There were usually about 15 such cues in each episode.

Weatherwax later admitted that Pal couldn’t be depended on to growl or snarl on command; luckily, since this was radio, animal imitator Earl Keen (who was routinely heard playing other dogs on the show) could step in to make those sounds. The stories themselves were usually simple and lighthearted and carried by narration and thin dialogue.

Producer Frank Ferrin fashioned the juvenile adventures to capture the essence of Eric Knight’s book, as our canine heroine wanderers from place to place, assisting (where she could) both human and animal friends. Each week, Pal appeared as the character Lassie, each week playing a different dog, in a separate one-off story.

The stories themselves covered a variety of adventures: One week, Lassie might rescue a farmer from a wild boar; another week might find her helping solve a murder, locating a missing movie-star dog or confronting a ghostly canine that roams the English moors. In one episode that broke from the series’ general lighthearted approach, Lassie helped a troubled individual who is considering suicide to reconsider their choices.

The series was not without an occasional guest star, as the likes of cowboy singer and Roy Rogers tagalong Ken Carson appeared in a musical episode called “Mule Train.” Other guest stars included actress Janet Leigh and actor Don Ameche.

Of course, Lassie’s role in the show wasn’t limited to the drama; she would take part in the commercials as well. When she was asked her favorite color, she gave no response until she was asked “Is it Red Heart?” At that point, she let loose with a frenzy of joyous barking that surely must have satisfied the sponsor.

As popular as it was, the radio series ended in 1950. By then, the studio system was starting to crumble (MGM cut costs by terminating contracts with numerous stars); just as important, television was on the horizon — and it wasn’t long before this new medium would be putting on the dog.

In 1954, producer Robert Maxwell brought Lassie to television, starring in a 30-minute adventure series that aired Sunday evenings on CBS. As popular as Lassie’s movies might have been, this series truly propelled the dog to superstardom.

For its first three seasons, the Lassie show focused on the adventures of young Jeff Miller, played by Tommy Rettig. Jan Clayton played mother Ellen and George Cleveland — who viewers might have remembered from his role in the film Courage of Lassie — as her father George, known as Gramps. Of course, Lassie would lend a paw to Jeff (or anyone else on or near the family farm) who got into trouble in the course of a given episode.

The fourth season brought with it some major changes. One of the biggest involved the star of the show. By 1957, Pal was growing old and losing his sight; he died a year later at the age of 18 and was buried on Rudd Weatherwax’s ranch. For the rest of Lassie’s career, the famous dog would be played by Pal’s descendants, including his son, Lassie Junior, and grandsons Spook, Baby, Mire and Hey Hey.

There were two other important cast changes during this time. First, the arrival of Timmy Claussen (played by Jon Provost), a runaway orphan who finds a home on the Millers’ farm. Second, Cleveland died of a heart attack midway through shooting the season.

With their beloved “Gramps” gone, the Millers moved away and out of the show, turning the farm over to Paul and Ruth Martin, played by Jon Sheppod and Cloris Leachman. (When Leachman left the show after the fourth season, June Lockhart — who had appeared in 1945’s Son of Lassie — took over as Ruth. The transition between families went relatively smoothly, and it wasn’t long before Timmy became the one for whom Lassie always came to the rescue.

With this new cast firmly in place, the show continued onward into the 1960s. Several episodes were edited together in 1965 to make a feature film, Lassie’s Great Adventure. By then, the show had undergone another major change when Paul Martin took a job (as an agricultural teacher) in Australia and the family made the difficult decision to leave Lassie behind, in the care of rugged U.S. Forest Ranger Corey Stewart (played by Robert Bray).

So began a six-year period on Lassie known as “The Ranger Years,” which shifted the focus away from the warm and cozy rural dynamic of the first decade in favor of new adventures that offered a broader, more expansive view of the United States. These emphasis on the greater outdoors allowed Lassie and Ranger Corey an array of opportunities to rescue numerous park visitors and endangered wildlife. Several episodes — during which the two try to save a wounded mother cougar and her cubs — were edited together to make the 1967 movie Flight of The Cougar.

Season 15 saw yet another transition, beginning with a two-part episode called “The Holocaust.” In the course of the story, Ranger Corey is badly burned during a forest fire, essentially writing Bray out of the series. Over the next two seasons, Lassie was companion to fellow rangers Bob Erickson and Scott Turner (played by Jack De Mave and Jed Allen, respectively).

The start of the show’s 17th season found Lassie going it alone, with no regular companions or caretakers. Instead, each week the dog found new adventures and befriended numerous humans and animals. She also became a mother, bringing her puppies along on her adventures until she found homes for each one. Some episodes featured Lassie and an all-animal cast, requiring no scripted dialogue other than a few barks and whimpers.

With the start of the 1970s, CBS — looking to reach a new audience — cancelled a number of their long-running shows. So it was that The Lassie Show left CBS after 17 seasons. Thankfully, the old dog had a few tricks left and returned to the airwaves in the fall of 1971 as a syndicated series.

The new series began with Lassie saving a coyote pup caught in the rapids of a raging river, only to find herself swept downstream and saved by Ron and Dale, two young hikers played by Robert Burton and Larry Wilcox (who later starred in the series C.H.I.P.s). In gratitude, Lassie stays with the boys as they return to Ron’s family farm, which doubles as a foster home for abandoned boys.

It was an effort to restore the dog to a home and “family” setting. During this time, Lassie’s adventures often involved Ron’s father Garth (Ron Hayes) and Lucy Baker, a deaf girl played by Pamelyn Ferdin. Despite these format changes, the series had run its course and was canceled after two seasons in syndication — and 19 seasons in all.

Theoretically, the end of Lassie’s television show might also have spelled the end of Rudd Weatherwax’s career; however, the trainer had shrewdly purchased the rights to the name from MGM in exchange for his final year’s salary and a small amount of extra money. As a result, he received payment for all future Lassie-related projects, including a short-lived animated series and a 1978 full-length feature film, The Magic of Lassie.

Directed by the prolific Don Chaffey (whose credits included Jason and the Argonauts, One Million Years B.C., Three Lives of Thomasina and Pete’s Dragon), this musical drama starred fellow screen legends James Stewart, Mickey Rooney and Alice Faye, with songs by Pat Boone and daughter Debby.

The film opened at New York’s Radio City Music Hall and broke a box-office record, grossing $40,673.75 on its opening night. However, critics panned the movie as old-fashioned and dated and focused on Stewart’s singing as a reason to avoid it.

In the years that followed, there were other efforts to revive the beloved character, including a 1989 Canadian television series (The New Lassie) and a 1997 Lassie series, produced for the Animal Planet channel. There were also four more full-length film adaptations; the most recent was a German version released in 2023.

For nine decades, Lassie has represented the love and the loyalty between an animal and those it loves. Just as Lassie is always there for her master, so is she there for all of us in the books, movies and shows we continue to share with our families and loved ones.

Tune in to Those Were the Days on August 17 to hear a broadcast of the Lassie radio show.

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