By Bob Walsh
Lois Lane, aka Phyllis Coates, died last week at the age of 96 of natural causes. She had been a resident of the Motion Picture and Television Fund retirement community in Woodland Hills, CA. for quite some time.
Her birth name was Gypsie Ann Stell and she hailed from Wichita Falls, Texas.
She was best known as Lois Lane, intrepid reporter for the Daily Planet in the 1950s TV series The Adventures of Superman. She had also played the part in one or two of the movies that preceded the TV show. She played Lois Lane in only the first year of the TV series before moving on to other things. She was paid $350 per episode for 26 episodes, which was pretty decent money back then.
In one of the episodes she missed her mark and got knocked out cold by a punch from a bad guy.
She left voluntarily after the first season because she was a vaudeville girl and wanted to do comedy. She continued to work for a long time, managing to avoiding being type-cast. She played the major female part in the Republic serial Jungle Drums of Africa opposite Clayton Moore and as the title character in Panther Girl of the Kongo.
She also worked in various TV series such as Tales of Wells Fargo, The Untouchables, Perry Mason and Leave it to Beaver.
Her last significant gig was as Lois Lane's mother in an episode of Lois & Clark, The New Adventures of Superman in 1994. She had three children, two daughters are still living, and one granddaughter. She was married four times.
1 comment:
I believe she really knew Clark Kent was Superman. Rest in Peace.
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