Lassie Come Home (1943)

Elizabeth was a last-minute replacement for Maria Flynn, the young actress cast as Priscilla, the Duke of Rudling’s granddaughter, who had grown a “head taller” than her co-star, fellow child star, Roddy McDowall. As the film’s producer, Sam Marx, later explained, “in those days you couldn’t have the girl taller than the boy, you just couldn’t do it.” In a bind, Marx recalled Francis Taylor, his fellow air-raid warden, telling him about his daughter, Elizabeth, who had made one film for Universal before the second option on her contract wasn’t picked up. “We were air-raid wardens, but Beverly Hills was pretty far from the center of the action. What we did was attend meetings. And at every one Francis Taylor took me aside and told me about his beautiful daughter.”

Marx telephoned Francis at his art gallery, and encouraged Elizabeth to audition at MGM. “We had six little girls lined up who had tried out for Mrs. Miniver,” Marx continued, “and as soon as Elizabeth walked in we sent them all home. It was like an eclipse of the sun. She was wearing a blue velvet cape with a kind of glow of purple about it.” Elizabeth, always a quick study, committed her sample dialogue to memory in a flash, and tested opposite the film’s director, who was standing in for Nigel Bruce, who would play her grandfather in the film, and a mop. “It was supposed to be Lassie,” Elizabeth explained years later, with a giggle. Elizabeth would earn $150 a week less than Pal, the dog cast as Lassie, and the same as Pal’s stand-in. “She was stunning, dazzling,” concluded Marx. “We knew we had a find.”

Cameraman Leonard Smith asked Elizabeth to remove her “false eyelashes and eye make-up.” She wasn’t wearing either. Elizabeth was born with a double row of eyelashes.

During the filming of Lassie Come Home, Elizabeth formed a friendship with her co-star, Roddy McDowall, that would endure for the rest of his life. “That film is notable to me mainly because I met its star, a little boy named Roddy McDowall who is now just about my oldest friend—and really the perfect friend,” she explained. “He makes you feel that you’re terribly dear to him and even that maybe you’re a dear person. He laughs at your jokes so you feel a bit funnier than you actually are. He makes you feel cherished and important. That’s his genius. So many of us look for the bad in people if we’re at all shy. Roddy looks for the good. It’s like the difference between English and French law. With Roddy you are innocent until proven guilty.”

‍Lassie Come Home inspired at least seven film sequels—including Courage of Lassie, starring Elizabeth in the lead role—and a popular television series that ran for nineteen years. Lassie, who was a female in Eric Knight’s original story, was portrayed onscreen in the MGM films by five male dogs (male collies tend to be larger and have fuller coats than females). Pal, the collie who played Lassie, lived to be nineteen, a whole fourteen years after he was replaced by his son in the films. In 1989, Elizabeth was given a collie that was a direct descendent of Pal.