NOEL NEILL
November 25th, 1920 --

Above: Noel Neill, in her trademark part of Lois Lane, shown with Clark Kent (Kirk Alyn) in this scene from SUPERMAN (Columbia, 1948).

Minnesota-born Noel Neill is almost certainly well known to the non-serial viewer as Lois Lane on the 1950's SUPERMAN TV show. To millions of fans, she simply was Lois Lane. The impudent smile, the jaunty, vivacious air, the cheerful, wryly humorous voice, were all trademarks of this personable actress. Not all viewers of the Superman show know, however, that the TV show was not Miss Neill's first crack at the part of Lois. Her association with the character goes farther back than that...

Above, from left to right: Noel Neill (as a friendly island girl), Stanley Blystone, Kane Richmond (as Brick Bradford), Rick Vallin, Frank Ellis, and Al Ferguson are featured in this still from BRICK BRADFORD (Columbia, 1947), Noel's first serial.

Interestingly, Noel's father, George Neill, was a Minnesota newspaper publisher who had wanted his daughter to become a reporter! Noel dreamed of getting into films, however, and eventually got her wish, but not until she had finished a long showbiz apprenticeship, which included a two-year stint as a singer at a Hollywood racetrack. It was the racetrack job that got her into movies, incidentally--Bing Crosby, one of the principal stockholders in the track, heard her sing and got her started in film work. She knocked around as a bit player in loads of films before she was hired by Columbia's shoestring-budget movie mogul, Sam Katzman, and appeared in several cheaply made teenage and college comedies. She also played a small part in Katzman's serial BRICK BRADFORD (Columbia, 1947) as a South Sea island girl in the section of the serial when the good guys journeyed back to pirate days. Thus, she had already had cliffhanger experience when Katzman cast her in her first serial heroine part--Lois Lane in the fifteen-chapter SUPERMAN (Columbia, 1948). Neill had never heard of Superman until her casting in the serial, but she got right into the spirit of the cliffhanger along with the rest of the cast: Kirk Alyn as Clark Kent/Superman, Tommy Bond as Jimmy Olsen, and Pierre Watkin as Perry White. The serial chronicled Superman's arrival on earth, his subsequent childhood, and his adult life in Metropolis, where he battled the Spider Lady (Carol Forman), a master villainess after a terribly destructive "Reducer Ray." Quite faithful to the spirit of the comic books, SUPERMAN was a wonderful serial, one of Columbia's best. Noel Neill captured the character of Lois perfectly, mixing a wide-eyed adoration of heroic Superman with sarcastic contempt of mousy Clark Kent, unaware that the two were one and the same. Noel was so well cast, and did such a good job in the part, that the character of Lois would affect the rest of her acting career.

Above: Lois Lane (Noel Neill) and Jimmy Olsen (Tommy Bond) in a scene from SUPERMAN (Columbia, 1948).

Her typecasting was not apparent at first, though. Noel's work was noticed by Republic Pictures, and they borrowed her to play the heroine in THE ADVENTURES OF FRANK AND JESSE JAMES (Republic, 1948). A sequel to the earlier JESSE JAMES RIDES AGAIN (Republic, 1947), the serial starred Clayton Moore as the famed outlaw, who was represented in the cliffhanger as an unjustly accused man wanting to get back on the right side of the law. He and his brother Frank (Steve Darrell) join old friend Jim Powell (Stanley Andrews) in developing a potentially rich gold mine, hoping to use some of the gold to pay back real and phony victims of their robberies alike. Unfortunately, Powell's mining engineer Amos Ramsey (John Crawford) is crooked as a bent corkscrew, and he murders Powell in a hope to sabotage the mining. However, Powell's daughter Judy (Noel) carries on with the aid of the James boys, and Ramsey and his henchman Rafe Henley (George J. Lewis) have to resort to lots of other tricks before Jesse eventually defeats them.

Above: Noel Neill and Clayton Moore in ADVENTURES OF FRANK AND JESSE JAMES (Republic, 1948). Steve Darrell is in the bottom right hand corner.

Neill's third serial was another Western, JAMES BROTHERS OF MISSOURI (Republic, 1950), with Keith Richards and Robert Bice as Jesse and Frank, respectively. The serial was a sequel to Noel's earlier Jesse James serial, and very similar to it in plot. This time, Frank and Jesse joined another old friend, Lon Royer (John Hamilton) and his daughter Peg (Noel) in running a stage line. When Lon gets murdered by Ace Marlin (Roy Barcroft), head of a rival stage line and secretly working for scheming businesswoman Belle Calhoun (Patricia Knox), the James boys once again help Noel finish her father's work. Interestingly, John Hamilton would later play Perry White to Neill's Lois Lane on the Superman TV show. Keith Richards would also make frequent appearances on the show, usually as a villain.

Above: Noel Neill watches as Roy Barcroft (center) accuses Robert Bice (far right) of sabotage in THE JAMES BROTHERS OF MISSOURI (Republic, 1950). John Crawford stands behind Noel.

Noel's last serial was a return to the part of Lois Lane: ATOM MAN VS. SUPERMAN (Columbia, 1950). This time around, she helped Superman (Kirk Alyn again) battle Atom Man, a mystery villain. Atom Man was secretly Lex Luthor, Superman's old arch-enemy (Lyle Talbot) who was pretending to reform as a cover-up for his activities as Atom Man. While giving Superman her unqualified approval, Noel still retained her distaste for Clark Kent, but she was nicer to him this time around, making Lois a little more friendly and likable than she had been in the first one.

Above: Superman (Kirk Alyn, far left) attempts to rescue Lois Lane (Noel Neill, center) from Atom Man (seated at the desk). Atom Man's henchmen, from left to right, are Don Harvey, Terry Frost, and Rusty Westcoatt in this scene from ATOM MAN VS. SUPERMAN (Columbia, 1950).

Noel continued to act in a wide variety of films until 1954, when Whitney Ellsworth, the producer of the Superman show, asked her to return to the role of Lois Lane, replacing Phyllis Coates, who had played Lois for the show's first season and decided to leave for other things. Neill played Lois for the rest of the show's run, and to this day, is still much in demand at gatherings of Superman fans all over the nation. She simply is Lois Lane. Not all of Noel's fans know of her cliffhanger career prior to her TV one, but those that do count themselves fortunate that Noel graced four serials with her impish smile, mischievous good looks, and her unique, charming presence.

Above: On to TV! Noel Neill as Lois Lane (with George Reeves as Superman) on the ever-popular Superman TV show, which cemented her identification as the girl reporter for all time.