John Provost was born in Los Angeles. At the age of four, Provost was cast in the film The Country Girl (1954), starring Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly. He then appeared in Back from Eternity (1956) with Anita Ekberg and Escapade in Japan (1957), with Teresa Wright, Cameron Mitchell, and an unknown and uncredited Clint Eastwood.
In 1957, Provost won the role of Timmy Martin in the CBS television series Lassie. He joined the show at the top of the fourth season as co-star with Tommy Rettig, Jan Clayton, and George Cleveland. Midpoint in the season, George Cleveland died and the show was completely revamped with Provost becoming the primary human star after the departures of Rettig and Clayton. The following year, he met June Lockhart on the set, who would play his mother, Ruth Martin, and would remain close friends.
Laurie Jacobson is a celebrated Hollywood researcher and author who released her fourth book in 2008. Timmy’s in the Well – The Jon Provost Story (Cumberland House) celebrates the 50th anniversary of Timmy from the original Lassie TV series. The book is a memoir she co-wrote with Provost, her husband.
Prior to Timmy’s in the Well, Laurie published the saucy and inventive Dishing Hollywood (Cumberland, 2nd printing), spilling the beans on 43 Tinseltown scandals – with a pertinent recipe connected to each one. Laurie’s second book, Hollywood Haunted (Angel City Press, 7th printing) covers more than 100 years of ghostly goings-on in filmland.
Recently, Laurie also made her film debut alongside Oscar-nominee Shirley Knight in Not Fade Away.
A reformed stand-up comic, Laurie emerged from Harvey Lembeck’s Comedy Improv Workshop, where she worked for years with classmates like Robin Williams, John Larroquette and John Ritter. While performing with comedy groups, Laurie immersed herself in studying the history of those who came before her. The stories and interviews she collected during this period became the basis for her debut, archetype book, Hollywood Heartbreak (Simon & Schuster, 3 printings), a 75-year history of Hollywood told through the lives and deaths of 31 people. Following its publication, Laurie emerged as a leading Hollywood historian.

website: www.jonprovost.com