Tony Award medallion and bracelet won by June Lockhart: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Tony Award medallion awarded to June Lockhart in 1948 as "Most Promising Newcomer" for her performance in the Broadway play For Love or Money. The gold, circular medallion is on a gold bracelet chain and is housed in a black velvet box with white, satin lining. The medallion is engraved, "The American Theatre Wing Presents your "Tony” an Antoinette Perry Award, 1947-48."

Lockhart received this award at the second annual Tony Award ceremony, held at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City on March 28, 1948. The now-familiar Tony Award statuettes were not given to winners until 1949; for the first two years, awards consisted of scrolls, cigarette lighters, and for female awardees, gold compact cases and medallion bracelets.

June Lockhart, the daughter of actors Gene Lockhart and Kathleen Arthur, was a popular television, film, and stage actress best known for her portrayals of Ruth Martin on the television series Lassie (1958-1964) and Dr. Maureen Robinson on Lost in Space (1965-1968). In a long and varied career, Lockhart debuted on staged at the age of eight, appeared as a child actress in films in the 1930s and 1940s, and portrayed a diverse range of characters in television series including drama, Westerns, science fiction, soap operas, cartoons, television movies, and hosted nationwide beauty pageants and parade broadcasts.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1947
• performer: Lockhart, June
• Object Name: award
• Physical Description: gold (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 6 in x 1 1/4 in; 15.24 cm x 3.175 cm
• Subject: Theater
• ID Number: 2008.0032.01
• accession number: 2008.0032
• catalog number: 2008.0032.01
• Credit Line: June Lockhart
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.