The brave Rough Collie Lassie will always be connected to actor Jon Provost, who launched his Hollywood career at the age of three when he was chosen to play Jane Wyman and Sterling Hayden’s kid in the movie So Big.

The show had 17 seasons, and in the 1960s, it even switched from black and white to color.
When Jon and his family adopted the adored puppy, the fourth season of the show officially began.

Despite being 72 years old today, Provost, who portrayed the endearing little child Timmy Martin, vividly remembers the time he spent filming the series and the connection he formed with the three different canines who played the part of Lassie, one of the most well-known TV dogs ever.

How then did Provost come to be in the public eye at such an early age?

It turns out that his mother took him to his very first audition while he was still a young child in order to meet Jane Wyman, who she was a tremendous fan of, and to ask for an autograph. Fortunately, when Provost was chosen for the part, they received a lot more.

His father was an aeronautical engineer, thus his parents had nothing to do with the entertainment industry.

“My parents weren’t from the movie industry. My mother is from Texas, and my father is from Alabama,” the little performer said.

“I didn’t have an agent, but I soon acquired one, which opened the door to other roles in films like The Country Girl with Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly. Before I started ‘Lassie,’ I did maybe 12 movies, he said Fox News.

“I did the show for seven years, 249 half-hour episodes,” Provost continued. I had three different Lassies with me at work. I spent five years working with the previous dog by myself.

“We shared a childhood. We saw each other five days a week for five years, with occasional weekends.

Speaking on the canine’s intelligence and manners, Provost playfully said, “The actors made more blunders than the dog. They posed more of a challenge.

Provost continued to act in movies after the show ended, but he eventually left Hollywood.

He has two kids with Sandy Goosens, to whom he was married.

But the pair broke up after almost fifteen years of marriage, and Provost found love again with writer and academic Laurie Jacobson.

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