Phyllis Coates, Television’s First Lois Lane, Dead at 96

Phyllis Coates, the first actress to play Daily Planet journalist Lois Lane on the small screen, has died at the age of 96.

Coates passed away of natural causes on Wednesday, her daughter Laura Press confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.

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The actress made her debut as Lois Lane in the first season of Adventures of Superman, which ran in syndication from 1952 to 1958. But after 24 episodes as Clark Kent’s colleague, Coates had to step away after Season 1, when sponsorship for Season 2 took too long to secure and a busy Coates was unavailable to continue in the role. She was succeeded by Noel Neill, who played Lois for the remainder of the show’s run.

Prior to Adventures of Superman, Coates had played Lois Lane in the 1951 flick Superman and the Mole Men, which was the first feature film based on a DC Comics character. Decades later, in 1994, she appeared in one episode of ABC’s Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman as Ellen Lane, the mother of Teri Hatcher’s Lois.

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Coates’ other TV credits included episodes of The Abbott and Costello Show, The Lone Ranger, Leave It to Beaver, Perry Mason and Gunsmoke, among others. She also co-starred on the one-season syndicated sitcom This Is Alice, playing the mother of Patty Ann Gerrity’s titular 9-year-old.

On the big screen, Coates appeared in such films as I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, Blood Arrow, Girls in Prison, The Baby Maker and Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn.

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