The original depiction of a Collie called Lassie is found in an 1859 short story, The Half-brothers, by English author Elizabeth Gaskell. This story established the Lassie saves the day story-line that runs through all the Lassie tales.
Lassie later featured in a short story in 1938 by another English author, Eric Knight, and again in 1940, when Knight published a full-length novel titled Lassie Come-Home, which was made into the first film Lassie Come Home in 1943, co-starring Roddy McDowall and Elizabeth Taylor. The hyphenation in the book’s title seems strange, but it comes from the final chapter when the boy, Joe Carraclough, tells Lassie:
Ye brought us luck. 'Cause ye're a come-homer. Ye're my Lassie Come-Home. Lassie Come-Home. That's thy name! Lassie Come-Home.
In case you’re struggling to figure out the accent portrayed there, the original story was set in Yorkshire, as was the first film. The TV series, which really established Lassie as a global icon, was set in the US.
There have been 12 main films (from 1943 to 2020), nearly 600 TV episodes over 19 series from 1954 to 1978, plus countless spin-offs, 2 radio series (1947 to 1950), countless books and even a 2005 video game, all of which have been translated and dubbed into many languages. The character reinforced the image of dogs as faithful companions and potential heroes, and boosted the popularity of the Collie breed. Lassie is one of the very few animals to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and, in 2005, Variety named Lassie one of the 100 Icons of the 20th Century; the only animal on the list.
Even though Lassie was supposed to be female, nine male dogs played Lassie in the MGM films and television series. The original Lassie was a dog called Pal, who starred in the original and six other MGM films, as well as the two pilots for the television series. Pal died in 1958 at the age of 18. All other on-screen Lassies until the 1970s were played by descendants of Pal, and all were trained by Rudd Weatherwax, who preferred to use male dogs because he thought they looked 'more heroic'!
