Lassie Come Home is a 1943 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Technicolor feature film starring Roddy McDowall and canine actor Pal, in a story about the profound bond between Yorkshire boy Joe Carraclough and his rough collie, Lassie. The film was directed by Fred M. Wilcox from a screenplay by Hugo Butler based upon the 1940 novel Lassie Come-Home by Eric Knight. The film was the first in a series of seven MGM films starring "Lassie."
Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall was a British and American actor, whose career spanned over 270 screen and stage roles across over 60 years. Born in London, he began his acting career as a child in his native England, before moving to the United States at the outbreak of World War II. He achieved prominence for his starring roles in How Green Was My Valley (1941), My Friend Flicka (1943), and Lassie Come Home (1943). Unlike many of his contemporaries, McDowall managed to evolve from child star into an adult performer and appeared on Broadway as well as in films, winning a Tony Award for his performance in Jean Anouilh's The Fighting Cock. For portraying Octavian in the historical epic Cleopatra (1963), he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.
Lassie is a fictional female Rough Collie dog and is featured in a 1938 short story by Eric Knight that was later expanded to a 1940 full-length novel, Lassie Come-Home. Knight's portrayal of Lassie bears some features in common with another fictional female collie of the same name, featured in the British writer Elizabeth Gaskell's 1859 short story "The Half Brothers". In "The Half Brothers", Lassie is loved only by her young master and guides the adults back to where two boys are lost in a snowstorm.
William Estes Nipper, known professionally as Will Estes, is an American actor. He is known for his role on CBS police drama Blue Bloods as Jameson "Jamie" Reagan, a New York City Police Department officer and the youngest son of the police commissioner, played by Tom Selleck. Prior to that role, he starred as J.J. Pryor, on the NBC drama American Dreams.
Deanna Wallace, also known as Dee Wallace Stone, is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Mary Taylor in the 1982 blockbuster science fiction film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
Ruddell Bird "Rudd" Weatherwax was an American actor, animal trainer, and breeder. He and his brother Frank are best remembered for training dogs for motion pictures and television. Their collie, Pal, became the original Lassie, handled by Rudd for the 1943 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film Lassie Come Home. He also handled the dogs for the Lassie television series which ran from 1954 to 1974, and trained Spike for the 1957 feature film Old Yeller. After his death, his son, Robert, took over the training of the animals.
Thomas Noel Rettig was an American child actor, computer software engineer, and author. He portrayed the character "Jeff Miller" in the first three seasons of CBS's Lassie television series, from 1954 to 1957, later seen in syndicated re-runs with the title Jeff's Collie. He also played the young orphan adopted by British star David Niven in Niven's film titled "No Identity," for the TV anthology series, Four Star Playhouse. He also co-starred with another former child actor, Tony Dow, in the mid-1960s television teen soap opera Never Too Young and recorded the song by that title with the group, The TR-4.
Lassie is an American television series that follows the adventures of a female Rough Collie dog named Lassie and her companions, both human and animal. The show was the creation of producer Robert Maxwell and animal trainer Rudd Weatherwax and was televised from September 12, 1954, to March 25, 1973, making it the eighth longest-running scripted American primetime television series. The show ran for 17 seasons on CBS before entering first-run syndication for its final two seasons. Initially filmed in black and white, the show transitioned to color in 1965.
Christopher Stone was an American actor.
Lee William Aaker was an American child actor, producer, carpenter, and ski instructor known for his appearance as Rusty of "B-Company" in the 1950s television program The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. He was the final surviving cast member of the series. In 1952, Lee Aaker appeared in Desperate Search with Howard Keel and Keenan Wynn.
Lassie's Rescue Rangers is an animated television series produced by Filmation and featuring Lassie, running from 1972 to 1973. The hour-long pilot, Lassie and the Spirit of Thunder Mountain, was part of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie.
Jan Clayton was a film, musical theater, and television actress. She starred in the popular 1950s TV series Lassie.
Son of Lassie is a 1945 American Technicolor feature film produced by MGM based on characters created by Eric Knight, and starring Peter Lawford, Donald Crisp, June Lockhart and Pal. A sequel to Lassie Come Home (1943), the film focuses on the now adult Joe Carraclough after he joins the Royal Air Force during World War II and is shot down over Nazi-occupied Norway along with a stowaway, Lassie's son "Laddie" – played by Pal. Son of Lassie was released theatrically on April 20, 1945, by Loew's.
Jonathan Bion Provost is an American actor, best known for his role as young Timmy Martin in the CBS series Lassie.
Lassie is a Canadian television series which aired from 1997 to 1999 on YTV in Canada and Sunday nights on the Animal Planet network in the United States, as a modified remake of the original Lassie series (1954–1973) about a boy and his faithful dog. As with previous Lassie TV versions and several films dating back to the original Lassie Come Home film of 1943, the star was Lassie, a trained Rough Collie.
Hugh Goodwin, better known as Jon Shepodd, was an American actor. On television, he was the first actor to play the role of Paul Martin in the long-running series Lassie Shepodd appeared as a guest star on Lassie in Season 3 in the episode "Lassie's Day" as "Al" the delivery man for Martha's Bakery.
Lassie Come-Home is a novel written by Eric Knight about a rough collie's trek over many miles to be reunited with the boy she loves. Knight had introduced the reading public to the canine character of Lassie in a magazine story published on 17 December 1938, in The Saturday Evening Post, a story which he later expanded to the novel and published in 1940 to critical and commercial success. In 1943, the novel was adapted to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer feature film Lassie Come Home starring Roddy McDowall as the boy Joe Carraclough, Pal as Lassie, and featuring Elizabeth Taylor. The motion picture was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry. A remake of Lassie Come Home, entitled Lassie, was released in 2005.
Joseph Douglas Vieira, known as Joey D. Vieira, is an American film and television actor. He began as a child actor using the professional name Donald Keeler playing chubby, beanie-wearing farm boy, Sylvester "Porky" Brockway in the first several seasons (1954–57) of TV's Lassie. Vieira borrowed the professional surname from his aunt, Ruby Keeler, star of numerous Warner Bros. musicals in the 1930s.
Charles Arthur Space was an American film, television and stage actor. Today's audiences know him as the eccentric inventor opposite Laurel and Hardy in The Big Noise (1944), and as veterinarian Doc Weaver in 39 episodes of the CBS television series Lassie.
