Noel Neill: the first live-action Lois Lane, from the serials to the TV series

Noel Neill in brief: who was the 1950-era Lois Lane?

Noel Neill was an American actress, born on November 25, 1920, in Minneapolis. Her first name is spelled Noel, without a diaeresis, even though you often see it written “Noël.” For Superman fans, she remains Lois Lane, the Daily Planet reporter who investigates alongside Clark Kent.

She played that role on the big screen, in two Columbia serials (1948 and 1950) opposite Kirk Alyn, then on television, in Adventures of Superman, opposite George Reeves, from 1953 to 1958. Fun fact: her father, David Neill, was a newspaperman himself, the news editor at the Minneapolis Star Journal.

If you are just discovering the character, our complete history of Lois Lane traces her path through the comics. Here, we follow the actress who was the first to play her in front of a camera, in the exact order of events, which is often told wrong.

Before Noel Neill: a Lois Lane you could only hear

Lois Lane was born on the page in 1938, in the first issue of Action Comics, the very one that also launched Superman. Her creators were Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. For ten years, she was only ever seen in drawings.

On the radio, starting in 1940, Lois was voiced by Rolly Bester, then by Helen Choate and, above all, by Joan Alexander. In the seventeen cartoons from Fleischer Studios and then Famous Studios, released from 1941 to 1943, she was voiced by Joan Alexander, then by Barbara Willock.

That is why the title specifies “live-action.” Noel Neill was not the first Lois, period, but the first to play her on film, in the 1948 serial. When she died, the AP wire story ran under the headline “first actress to play Lois Lane,” making it clear in the body of the text: on screen.

From Minneapolis to the Teen Agers: the road to the role

After graduating from Central High School in Minneapolis in 1938, Noel Neill set off for California. She spent two years singing at the restaurant of the Del Mar racetrack. Bing Crosby noticed her, and the deal was sealed with a contract at Paramount.

At Paramount, she went from one small part to the next, often uncredited, in films like Here Come the Waves (1944) or The Blue Dahlia (1946). The studio also loaned her out to independent producer Sam Katzman.

At Monogram, Katzman cast her as Betty Rogers in The Teen Agers musical comedies, starting with Junior Prom in 1946. Betty writes for her high school newspaper. When Katzman produced the Superman serial for Columbia, he remembered that young reporter and hired her to play Lois. The high school cub reporter thus moved up to the newsroom of the Daily Planet.

Superman (1948): the first serial, opposite Kirk Alyn

A serial is a film split into chapters, shown in theaters one after another, each one ending on a cliffhanger. Superman, produced by Sam Katzman for Columbia and directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet and Thomas Carr, has 15 chapters. The first one came out in January 1948.

Kirk Alyn plays Superman and Clark Kent, and Noel Neill plays Lois Lane. Alongside them, Tommy Bond portrays Jimmy Olsen and Pierre Watkin plays Perry White. The villain, the Spider Lady, played by Carol Forman, was created for the serial.

The budget was tight, and it shows in the flying scenes: when Superman takes off, Kirk Alyn disappears behind an obstacle and a cartoon Superman takes over. Superman's flight is therefore handled through animation. The serial was nonetheless a big hit for Columbia: it made Alyn famous and launched Neill's career. For the story of her co-star, read our profile of Kirk Alyn.

Atom Man vs. Superman (1950): Lois up against Luthor

The success of the first serial called for a sequel. Atom Man vs. Superman was released starting on July 20, 1950, once again at Columbia, with Sam Katzman producing and Spencer Gordon Bennet directing. Watch out for the title: some wire reports flip it around to “Superman vs. Atom Man.”

Kirk Alyn, Noel Neill, Tommy Bond, and Pierre Watkin are all back. What is new is the villain. Lyle Talbot plays Luthor, who operates behind a mask under the name Atom Man. He invents a device that teleports anyone holding a special coin, and his “Empty Doom” makes Superman disappear. Our feature on Lex Luthor in the movies follows the character all the way to the present day.

For Noel Neill, it was her last serial, after others such as Brick Bradford (1947). And when television took up Superman, she did not go straight from movie theaters to the small screen.

Adventures of Superman: Phyllis Coates first, Noel Neill next

This is the point where many articles get it wrong. In 1951, the production shot a feature film, Superman and the Mole Men, released in November 1951, which served as a pilot, followed by the first season of the series. George Reeves plays Superman. Lois Lane, on the other hand, is played by Phyllis Coates. Noel Neill appears neither in the film nor in season 1.

Season 1 consists of 26 black-and-white episodes, aired from September 19, 1952, to August 10, 1953. Kellogg's had sponsored the series since it first aired, in 1952. When shooting resumed in 1953, Phyllis Coates was no longer available: she had signed on to another pilot, which would never sell. By her own account, she also found the series less ambitious under producer Whitney Ellsworth.

So Whitney Ellsworth called Noel Neill back. She took over as Lois from season 2 and kept the role until the very end. The two “firsts” do not contradict each other: Phyllis Coates is television's first Lois, while Noel Neill is the first live-action Lois, on any screen.

Five seasons opposite George Reeves (1953-1958)

From September 1953 to April 1958, Noel Neill was Lois Lane on television. Seasons 2 through 6 add up to 78 of the series' 104 episodes. The exact number of episodes in which Lois appears varies from one database to another. In French, the series goes by the title Les Aventures de Superman.

Alongside her, Jack Larson plays Jimmy Olsen and John Hamilton plays Perry White. Seasons 3 through 6 were shot in color, but first aired in black and white. Shooting moved fast: two episodes a week, as Neill remembered it. In 2006, she described Kirk Alyn as a former dancer who was a bit of a ham, and George Reeves as a real actor, trained at the Pasadena Playhouse.

Why does Lois never figure out Clark Kent's secret identity? According to the AP, Neill used to answer jokingly that she did not want to lose her job. In 1954, she also played Lois again in Stamp Day for Superman, a short film commissioned by the U.S. Treasury to encourage kids to save their money, and shown in schools.

After 1958: retirement, then three returns, never as Lois Lane

The series came to an end in 1958. A revival was being considered when George Reeves died on June 16, 1959, shot at his home in Los Angeles; his death was ruled a suicide. Neill then left the business: she had, as she later put it, “worked enough.” Over the decade that began in 1970, interest in the series came back, and she gave lectures on college campuses, then became a regular at fan conventions.

She came back three times to the Superman universe, never as Lois. In 1978, in Richard Donner's Superman, where Lois is played by Margot Kidder, she appears in the train scene in Smallville. She and Kirk Alyn play the parents of a little girl: the young Lois. This cameo is uncredited, and the line of dialogue that identifies the girl was cut from the theatrical release, then restored in extended versions.

In 1991, in “Paranoia,” an episode of The Adventures of Superboy, she plays Alexis, a coworker of Clark and Lana. Jack Larson plays Lou in that episode, not Jimmy Olsen.

Finally, in 2006, Bryan Singer's Superman Returns gave her the role of Gertrude Vanderworth, a wealthy dying widow whose fortune Lex Luthor inherits. The film's Lois is Kate Bosworth.

Noel Neill's legacy: a statue, awards, and successors

In June 2010, the small town of Metropolis, Illinois, unveiled, during its Superman festival, a statue of Lois Lane sculpted in the likeness of Noel Neill, who attended in person. News reports at the time date it to June 11, while Wikipedia gives June 15. This town has nothing to do with the Metropolis of the comics, but it already had a statue of Superman.

Neill also received a Golden Boot Award in 2004 for her westerns and an Inkpot Award in 2008, presented by Comic-Con. She died on July 3, 2016, at her home in Tucson, Arizona, at age 95.

She remains the only actress to have played Lois Lane opposite the first two live-action Supermen. After her, others took on the role, each in her own way: Teri Hatcher in Lois & Clark, Erica Durance in Smallville, Amy Adams in Man of Steel, Elizabeth Tulloch in Superman & Lois, and Rachel Brosnahan in James Gunn's Superman.

Conclusion

Before 1948, Lois Lane existed only as a drawing and a voice. Noel Neill gave her a face in two serials opposite Kirk Alyn, then played her again on television from season 2 on, after Phyllis Coates, opposite George Reeves. Her appearances in 1978, 1991, and 2006 are nods to the past, never returns as Lois.

To go further, revisit the story of the Superman and Lois couple in the comics, or browse our list of Superman series.