Phyllis Coates, who first played Lois Lane on TV, dies at 96

Phyllis Coates, who played Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane in “Superman,” has died. She was 96 years old.

Mr. Coates, the first actor to play the iconic role in the 1950s television series “The Adventures of Superman,” died of natural causes Wednesday at the Motion Picture and Television Fund retirement community in Woodland Hills.

According to the New York Times, his daughter Laura Press confirmed his death.

Coates was born Gypsy Ann Stell on January 15, 1927 in Wichita Falls, Texas. Her father, William Robert “Rush” Stell, was a farmer and sheet metal worker. Her family then moved to Odessa, Texas, where she attended school. At age 16, she left Texas with her mother, Lorraine “Lusie” Jack Thiel, for California to attend Los Angeles City College. Coates’ introduction to show business was in California, where she appeared in Ken Murray’s vaudeville show. “It worked out. That’s when I decided I wanted to become an actress,” she told Western Clippings.

With a career spanning more than half a century, Coates is perhaps best known for playing Lois Lane in the 1951 film Superman and the Mole Man and the first season of the television series The Adventures of Superman . The actor became the first person to play the role of a career-minded reporter and Superman’s lover on the small screen. Actor Noel Neill directed two 15-part film series, Superman (1948) and Atom Man vs. Superman (1950), before Coates took over as director for the 1951 feature film. He played Lane for the first time on screen. The success of “Superman and the Mole Man” prompted the production of a syndicated television show starring George Reeves as the Man of Steel.

Coates played Lane for one season and 26 episodes before leaving the series. She earned about $350 per episode.

In 1994, Coates told the Times from the set of the Warner Bros. film Lois and Clark that when he played Lane, “there were no wardrobe mistresses or hairdressers in those days.” Oh, I had one of her suits. She wears one suit, and she wears a double suit in case there is an egg attached to it. And George’s dresser dressed me. My make-up man was Harry Thomas, who did make-up for all the monsters in Hollywood. ”

In Tom Weaver’s 2006 book, Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes, Coates recalled: .

“I watched an episode recently. [‘Night of Terror’] Where I got knocked out!

Coates apparently overstepped his standards and was accidentally punched in the face by actor Frank Richards, causing him to pass out.

Coates told Western Clippings that he ultimately quit the “Superman” series because he loved doing comedy. “My ‘Superman’ contract has expired. I left the series to make the pilot. [fellow actors] Jack Carson and Allen Jenkins. We did a pilot for MCA. It didn’t last until the end, as Jack became ill soon after. That’s why I left, not because I was mad or anything. I loved George and I loved the crew. They offered me a significant pay increase to stay, but I really wanted to leave. ”

After “Superman,” Coates dyed his brunette hair platinum to resolve his relationship with Lane, and appeared in the 1952 Republic drama series “The Jungle Drum of Africa” and “The Lone Ranger.” She starred opposite Clayton Moore in the film, playing Lane’s daughter. He is a medical missionary who died in Africa, and as he takes over his father’s work, he encounters a beast of prey. She also appeared in the title role in 1954’s “Panther Girl of Kongo.”

“I had to ride elephants all day,” she said in “Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes.” “And my legs were raw with elephant hair. I never knew elephants had hair!”

Coates also appeared on the television shows “Leave It to Beaver,” “The Wells Fargo Story,” “Rawhide,” “The Untouchables,” “Perry Mason,” “The Patty Duke Show,” and “Gunsmoke.” She starred in her B-list westerns such as the 1953 film Topeka, 1954’s Gunfighters of the Northwest, and the 1958 films Cattle-Her-Empire and Blood-Her-Arrow. It was known.

Coates said that despite his popularity in western movies, he was actually bad at horseback riding. “I only rode the horse when I needed to and got off as soon as possible,” she told Western Clippings. She said Coates preferred stage acting to film acting, and although she appeared in dozens of Westerns over the years, she liked her work best on the television series “The Untouchables.”

“I wasn’t as lucky as other actors. … I didn’t have the rehearsal time,” she told Western Clippings. “We made ‘Quick.’ We made the whole movie in six days. There was no second take. We did the second take and everyone pouted and got mad. They… I set the cowboy on fire, I set the cowboy hat and the cowboy horse on fire. It was such a rush. So when he had the opportunity to work with a great director on The Untouchables, he decided to take his time. He went into great detail on the details of acting…I really liked it!”

Coates married television director Richard L. Baer in 1948, but the two separated a year later. In 1950 she married Robert Nelms, a married jazz pianist, and gave birth to a daughter, but she divorced Nelms in 1953. They divorced in 1965. She later married physician Howard Press, but he “didn’t understand the movie business” so she gave up her job and helped him run his clinic. They later divorced.

Coates took a hiatus from acting during her marriage to Press, but resumed her career once she was single again. She played Marilyn Monroe’s mentally ill mother Gladys Baker in the 1989 film Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn and in a 1994 episode of ABC’s Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. She played the mother of Teri Hatcher’s Lois Lane. .

In a 1994 interview with the Times after she returned to Superman as Lane’s mother, Coates said, “My son said it was Gestalt. Times contributor Rip Rence described Coates at the time as “a handsome, blue-eyed, still diminutive zodiac whose alto voice hasn’t changed since 1951.”

Mr. Coates is survived by daughters Laura Press and Zoe Christopher, and granddaughter Olivia. Her son, David Tooker, died in 2011.