TUCSON, Ariz. - The actress who was the first to play Superman's love interest, Lois Lane, on screen has died. Noel Neill, a Minneapolis native, was 95.
Neill's biographer Larry Ward tells The Associated Press that she died Sunday at her home in Tucson after a long illness.
Neill first took on the role as the Daily Planet reporter in the Columbia movie serial Superman in 1948. She reprised the part alongside George Reeves in the TV series Adventures of Superman in 1952 (the show had debuted the previous year with Phyllis Coates in the role). Neill stayed on until the show ended in 1958.
She did little acting afterward, but in the 1970s, with the advent of a new age of Superman movies, occasionally made film appearances. For instance, she played Lois Lane’s mother in Superman, the 1978 film with Christopher Reeve as the title character and Margot Kidder as Lois. She also had a bit part in Superman Returns in 2006.
Neill’s Lois often fell into the trap of victim as women characters often did in superhero movies of the time (and frankly, often still do) — many of the episodes revolved around Superman’s efforts to save her. But she gave Lois something more than just a need to be rescued. For one thing, her Lois suspected that Clark Kent was Superman and often said so.
Lois also was, first and foremost, a reporter. In real life, Neill’s father was, as well, serving as the news editor of what would become the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, according to reports; at one time, she apparently wanted to be a reporter herself.
Instead, she played one, and did so with gusto.
Her version of Lois would become the template for Kidder’s and others — smart, no-nonsense, quick with a comeback, at least in the newsroom. At the time, newsrooms were very much a good-old-boys club. Neill’s Lois barged in, sat down to a typewriter and started writing. She may have needed Superman’s help an inordinate amount of times in extreme situations, but she still sought the truth — even if it meant trying to get the horn-rimmed glasses off of Clark to reveal his true identity.
In 2010, the city of Metropolis, Ill., unveiled a statue of Lois Lane modeled after Neill.
