Category: Jon Provost

Jon Provost’s Graceful Movie Mom

Nobody ever says just the name “Lassie”, do they? Doesn’t everybody who’s old enough to know the TV show say “Timmy and Lassie”?

Jon Provost says he has no problem with the idea that he played second fiddle to a dog, but once he was on board the series he was the star. Tommy Rettig was great playing Jeff, Lassie’s previous owner, but the character Timmy has achieved the status of a pop culture icon.

I’ve featured Provost several times here, and I highly recommend his tell-all book, Timmy’s In The Well. The Daily Breeze, out in L.A., CA way, has a good, concise article about Jon that I’ll link to right here.

The article mentions that Provost is in The Country Girl with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly. Of the movie, Jon says, “At ease with grown-ups, I struck up a conversation with Mr. Crosby while we waited for technicians to light the set. Whatever I said made him laugh. “Say, this kid ad libs better than Bob Hope!”” And here Jon is, in “The Country Girl.”

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Great death scene, Jon. Hey, I’ve met somebody who met Grace Kelly. And she was no dog!

Jon Provost’s Well-Told Tale

Timmy’s In The Well, Jon Provost’s autobiography, written with his wife Laurie Jacobson, is an amazing accomplishment. If you ever watched Jon as Timmy Martin in Lassie, you must get this book. Click here to see a complete episode of Lassie with Jon.

Jon Provost - Timmy's In The Well

This is not a book for kids. Provost vividly evokes the sweeping social changes in America in the staid 50’s, through the psychedelic 60’s, and beyond. This is a real insider’s view of growing up in Hollywood, with many revelations about the life of a TV child star. All of the wild fun, the hard work, and the bitter pain, is told matter-of-factly, with total honesty and utter sincerity. There are many quotes and comments from colleagues and friends in the entertainment business, and although the photos are small, there are a lot of them, conveniently integrated into the text.

Jon Provost is appearing today at Canine Companions for Independence in Santa Rosa, California, where he lives. Santa Rosa is also home to the Charles M. Schulz Museum. Schulz’s widow Jeannie is a board member of Canine Companions for Independence.

Canine Companions for Independence

Christmas With Timmy And Lassie

Last month I had the pleasure of meeting Jon Provost of Lassie fame. Jon’s autobiography, Timmy’s In The Well is out, although I haven’t received my copy yet.

If you aren’t familiar with Lassie from the Provost years, here’s a complete show. “The Christmas Story,” from December 21, 1958. Great stuff. Note: I picked that preview frame because that car is the same Ford Country Squire wagon we had.
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June Lockhart’s TV Sons

Today, in Springfield MA, I met Jon Provost and Bill Mumy. They were separated by the Connecticut River — Jon was on the west side and Bill on the east, at two very different events. Jon was appearing at the World of Pets, and Bill was at the United Fan Con. What they have in common is June Lockhart was their mother on TV — Jon as Timmy Martin on ‘Lassie’, and Bill as Will Robinson on ‘Lost In Space’.

Jon Provost and June LockhartBill Mumy and June Lockhart

Bill Mumy shares a distinction with another former child actor — Jerry Mathers, from ‘Leave It To Beaver’. They were both directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Bill was in ‘Bang! You’re Dead’, one of the most famous installments of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and one of the few that the master himself directed. Mathers was in Hitchcock’s film ‘The Trouble With Harry’.

I can honestly say that I liked all of these guys when I watched them on TV as a kid. I’ve never had a chance to see Mathers in person, but I was thoroughly impressed by Provost and Mumy. They’re both very smart guys, as nice as anybody could ever be, and as good at listening as they are at speaking; but, then, I guess that makes sense, given their training and experience, starting at such an early age. Or maybe it comes from having June Lockhart as their TV mom!

Timmy's In The WellA while ago I posted an item about Jon Provost, whose autobiography, Timmy’s In The Well, will be out soon. Timmy was never in the well on TV, so I was pleased to show Jon the one piece of physical evidence I know of that Timmy, in cartoon form, was briefly in a well, and he was nice enough to sign it for me. Here I am today, with Jon Provost.

Jon Provost and DOuG pRATt

Bill Mumy has always been very much into music, and is a musician himself. He’s very, very good. Hear for yourself by playing the Mumy Jukebox. For a while he was in the band America. Mumy has a wide selection of great music available, and I bought his latest CD.

Bill Mumy - The Landlord or the Guest

It was a fun day! Eric got to see somebody as well, and I’m hoping to post something about that later.

Timmy’s in the Well: The Jon Provost Story

Timmy's In The Well, by Jon Provost

Unless you subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog’s comments, you may not have noticed a follow-up to my “Timmy In The Well” post.

Hi,

I thought you might like this video. You are correct that Jon Provost (Timmy) was never in the well. The joke became so well known that he has named his new book “Timmy’s in the Well”. The book will be out mid-November.

http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=894543076

Thx,
Bonnie Vent
Genesis Creations Entertainment
www.genesiscreations.biz

The video is from The O’Reilly Factor, but despite Bill O’Reilly I can recommend watching the segment, because Jon is interesting. Something that I didn’t know, and in fact joked about in my previous post, is that Lassie really did have a stunt double! I’ll embed the video here.

Jon’s Web site is here. The book can be ordered here from Amazon.com.

I hope copies of the book will be available in time for Provost’s appearance in West Springfield, MA on November 2-4, because I’m hoping to see him there to say hi. I’d like to give Jon the Give-a-Show slide that I scanned and posted, now that it’s confirmed he never fell into a well, playing Timmy Martin on Lassie.

Timmy In The Well

“Timmy’s In The Well” is a catchphrase that I suspect came from a comedian’s stand-up routine, but don’t ask me to say who or when. It’s a reference to the old Lassie TV show, when Jon Provost played Timmy, replacing Tom Rettig, who had played Jeff. There was a Simpsons episode where Bart faked being trapped in a well. Perhaps that added fuel to the popularity of the joke.

The skit involves Lassie running up to an adult, presumably Timmy’s caring and responsible, — yet somehow hapless — father, barking frantically. The joke is that the human can understand the barking. “What’s that Lassie? Timmy’s fallen in the well??” I don’t know with absolute certainty that Timmy never fell in a well on the TV show, but that assertion was made by somebody on a TV Land bulletin board.

Timmy In The WellSo where exactly did the notion come from that Timmy fell in the well? Perhaps it came from a 1962 Kenner Give-A-Show slide. I’ve inserted a scan of the slide into the upper corner of this paragraph. Click to enlarge. This being the only proof offered on the Net that Timmy did, in fact, fall in a well, it deserves a thoughtful frame-by-frame analysis.

Timmy In The Well - 1Timmy In The Well - 2Timmy In The Well - 3

Timmy In The Well - 4Timmy In The Well - 5Timmy In The Well - 6Timmy In The Well -7
Click pictures to enlarge

  1. That isn’t a barbed wire fence, and Mr. Jones’ field appears to be for grazing cattle, making it likely the fence is electrified. Perhaps Timmy enjoys the tingling sensation.
  2. A few boards over the well? Enough to make it obvious the well is there, but not enough to protect it. Timmy is indeed a thrill-seeker. He’s walking over the boards intentionally.
  3. This is actually Lassie’s stunt double.
  4. Good thing the well is so shallow that standing on a collie’s back is enough of a boost to escape. One can presume the well had been partially filled in.
  5. If Timmy weighs enough to snap those boards, he’s breaking the stunt dog’s back. Otherwise, she’d be able to jump out by herself.
  6. Timmy knows he’s going to catch Hell, yet he promises to fetch Mr. Jones.
  7. But wait! Timmy doesn’t have to admit to being in the well, because this is the real Lassie with him. Her stunt double is back in the well, paralyzed.

All’s well that ends well for Timmy! But not for Mr. Jones, who finds a dead dog in his well and will later be sued by Timmy’s parents for failing to properly fill or seal the well.