TV’s original Lois Lane actor, Phyllis Coates, dies aged 96

Coates starred opposite George Reeves in television classic ‘Adventures of Superman’

George Reeves and Phyllis Coates (Getty Images)

Phyllis Coates, the first actor to portray Lois Lane on television, has died aged 96.

Coates starred opposite George Reeves in the black-and-white Adventures of Superman series.

Laura Press, Coates’s daughter, confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that her mother died on Wednesday (11 October) from natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.

Coates featured as Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane in the 1951 film Superman and the Mole Men. She later reprised the role in the first season of the six-season adventure series, which ran from 1952 to 1958.

Born Born Gypsie Ann Evarts Stell on 15 January 1927 in Wichita Falls, Texas, Coates and her family eventually moved to Hollywood, where she launched her showbiz career as a chorus girl in the 1940s. She often toured with the United States Organisations (USO), entertaining the US Armed Forces and their families.

Nearly a decade later, she landed several small supporting roles in films, including Smart Girls Don’t Talk (1948) and My Foolish Heart (1949). She also appeared as Alice McDoakes in a number of Joe McDoakes comedyshorts.

Coates was then invited in 1951 to audition for the part of Lois Lane in the low-budget feature film Superman and the Mole Men. The movie, starring Reeves as Superman, was essentially a de facto TV pilot to Adventures of Superman, which they both returned for.

Phyllis Coates on far left (Getty Images)

However, Coates left after the first season due to conflicts with producers and future projects. The show continued for six more seasons, with Noel Neill taking over for Coates. A seventh season was planned but was scrapped after Reeves’s unexpected death in 1959.

Coates was portrayed by Lorry Ayers in Hollywoodland (2006), about an investigator (Adrien Brody) who looks into Reeves’s (Ben Affleck) death, which was ruled a suicide.

Coates continued to rack up an extensive list of TV and film credits during her career. She appeared in numerous Fifties and Sixties TV shows like The Lone Ranger, Lassie, Leave It To Beaver, Hawaiian Eye, Rawhide, Perry Mason, The Untouchables, The Virginian and Death Valley Days, followed by a role in the 1970s TV-movie The Baby Maker, alongside Barbara Hershey.

Her final on-screen role was in two 1994 episodes of Dr Quinn: Medicine Woman.

Coates, who was married four times, is survived by daughters Laura and Zoe, and granddaughter Olivia.