R.I.P. Phyllis Coates, TV’s first Lois Lane

Phyllis Coates, a woman who had a five-decade career in show business that started in the ‘40s and ran all the way until the ‘90s—with her famously being the first person to play iconic comic book character Lois Lane on television—has died. This comes from The Hollywood Reporter, which says her daughter confirmed that she died of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Country House And Hospital in Los Angeles this week. Coates was 96.

Coates, born Gypsie Ann Evarts Stell in Texas in 1927, moved to Los Angeles as a teenager and was eventually discovered by comedian Ken Murray, who taught her comedy and put her in vaudeville skits in variety shows, which later led to her working as a showgirl and touring with the USO in the ‘40s. She appeared in a bunch of films over the next decade, most notably 1951’s Superman And The Mole Men (the first feature film based on any DC Comics character, and one that concerns Superman defending an innocent race of underground dwellers from intolerant humans), where she made her debut as ace reporter Lois Lane.

The movie was a hit, and it was spun off into Adventures Of Superman (the first TV show about the DC superhero). Coates and George Reeves reprised their roles as Lois and Superman, and for all 26 episodes of the show’s first season, Coates was regularly knocked around and put in danger for the sake of wacky sci-fi action stunts that Reeves’ Man Of Steel could rescue her from. According to THR, Coates once explained that she was paid about $350 for each episode and that they’d sometimes film “four or five” at a time, which meant she would just wear the same suit and hat in each one.

Like the movie, the show was also a hit, but when it came time to make a second season, Coates turned down an offer to return—even for “four or fives times” what she was getting paid—so she could sign on to a different show that ended up not going forward. She was replaced by Noel Neill, who had played Lois in various Superman movie serials made by Columbia around the same time. Neill stayed with the show for the remainder of its run and later made a cameo as Lois Lane’s mother in Richard Donner’s 1978 Superman movie, a tradition that Coates carried on with an appearance as Lois’ mother in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman (with Teri Hatcher, that show’s Lois, making a cameo as Lois’ mother on Smallville a few years later).

Beyond Superman, Coates appeared in Jungle Drums Of Africa, Panther Girl Of The Kongo, Girls In Prison, This Is Alice, I Was A Teenage Frankenstein, The Lone Ranger, Leave It To Beaver, The Baby Maker, and Goodnight Sweet Marilyn. A fictionalized version of her also appeared in Hollywoodland, the 2006 film starring Adrien Brody and Ben Affleck about the mysterious (or at least supposedly mysterious) circumstances surrounding Reeves’ death.