Ms. Neill was born in Minneapolis on November 25, 1920, and she initially said she hoped to follow her father, a newspaper editor, into a journalism career.
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Noel Neill, the first actress to play Superman’s girlfriend Lois Lane on screen, is dead.
After several small movie roles, the actress was cast as the eager reporter Lois Lane in the Superman serial which premiered in 1948, aged 28. While singing in a restaurant at the Del Mar race track, Neill was spotted by Bing Crosby, who helped her land a contract with Paramount Pictures.
Reflecting on the old TV series, she said it had not been a demanding role.
Neill was an early Superman star, playing the Daily Planet reporter in the 1940s and 50s. Neill once again played Louis Lane in TV series Adventures of Superman, taking over the part for Phyllis Coates, who had quit after just one season. 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.
While Superman may have gone off the air after 1958, this would be far from Neill’s end with the hero.
Following “Adventures of Superman”, Neill’s onscreen appearances were limited, although she made cameos in many Superman-related live-action productions. She later portrayed the wife of Kevin Spacey’s Lex Luther in Superman Returns, a Superman movie released on 2006. Few of her fans actually knew her real name, nearly always simply calling her ‘Lois, ‘ to which she would unfailingly answer with a bright smile and a kind word.
Her work in the iconic 1950s television series, The Adventures of Superman with the late George Reeves, however, best defined and cemented her legacy as “the intrepid reporter”.
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In 2005 the Metropolis Chamber of Commerce announced it would like to erect a statue of Neill in character as Lois Lane. And in Smallville, Erica Durance took over the role from 2004 to 2011.
