PHYLLIS COATES
January 15th, 1927 --

Above: Phyllis Coates in a publicity portrait from the mid-fifties.

I must admit that I rarely number three-time serial heroine Phyllis Coates among my favorite actresses, but that's mainly because of her super-aggressive portrayal of Lois Lane on the first season of the Superman TV show. She just seemed to lack any of the humor that the other performers brought to their roles; it was a good thing she was replaced by Noel Neill after one season. However, Phyllis was an accomplished actress, and Lois Lane was not her only characterization. She could play sympathetic characters with equal skill, including her comic roles in the George O'Hanlon comedy series and a part in an episode of LEAVE IT TO BEAVER. Her serial characters were also a lot more likable than her Lois. Actually, there's no reason why Miss Coates should not be given her due as a fine serial heroine. She is certainly one of the last of the serial queens, following in the footsteps of the greats like Kay Aldridge and Linda Stirling.

Born in Wichita Falls, Texas, Phyllis Coates (which was not her real name; out of respect for her I won't reveal her actual one, as she hated it) started in showbiz as a teenager, working as a chorus member in one of Ken Murray's vaudeville shows. She started her Hollywood career in the late forties, in the recurring role of George O'Hanlon's wife in his "So You Wanna Be--" series of comedy shorts at Warner Brothers. Her first venture into the B-picture world was a major role in the Whip Wilson B-western BADMEN OF TEXAS (Monogram, 1950), and her first serial was JUNGLE DRUMS OF AFRICA (Republic, 1953). She played Carol Bryant, the daughter of a deceased medical missionary carrying on her father's work among the natives. She joins forces with American mining engineers Alan King (Clayton Moore, in his last starring Republic serial) and Bert Hadley (Johnny Spencer) as they attempt to develop a valuable uranium mine deep in the jungle. The three of them are opposed by Kurgan (Henry Rowland), a foreign spy who wants the mine for his own country, and who enlists witch doctor Naganto (Roy Glenn), who has a grudge against Coates because her medical treatments are beating out his voodoo, to aid him in turning the natives against the good guys. JUNGLE DRUMS OF AFRICA, one of the best later Republic serials, gave Phyllis an excellent serial debut. Judging by the fact that the cliffhanger situations were divided equally between her and Moore, Republic was making a conscious effort to showcase Coates as their new serial queen

Above: A lobby card for JUNGLE DRUMS OF AFRICA (Republic, 1953) shows (from left to right) Johnny Spencer, Phyllis Coates, and Clayton Moore in a shootout with hostile natives.

Apparently, Republic didn't sign Phyllis to a Term Players contract, as her next serial was made over at Columbia--1954's GUNFIGHTERS OF THE NORTHWEST. She appeared again with Clayton Moore, but he was secondary hero to ace stuntman Jock Mahoney this time around. Mahoney and Moore played Ward and Nevin, a pair of Mounties who battled a mysterious outlaw gang called the White Horse Rebels, led by a mystery man. Coates played Rita Carville, a trading post owner who had a secret reason of her own for tracking down the Rebels. GUNFIGHTERS, like JUNGLE DRUMS, was one of the better later serials; one unique gimmick was the fact that the entire serial was shot outdoors, without a single indoor scene, by veteran director Spencer Bennett.

Above: Phyllis Coates and Jock Mahoney enjoy an oddly peaceful picnic in this publicity still for GUNFIGHTERS OF THE NORTHWEST (Columbia, 1954).

Coates' final serial was another Republic, PANTHER GIRL OF THE CONGO in 1955. You might think by the title that her character was role was a white jungle goddess similar to Linda Stirling's Tiger Woman, but Phyllis played an American wildlife photographer, Jean Evans, who had been nicknamed Panther Girl by the natives and sometimes donned Frances Gifford's outfit from JUNGLE GIRL (Republic, 1941) in order to match stock footage from that earlier outing. Myron Healey (best known as a B-western villain) was the hero, big-game hunter Larry Sanders, and the villain of the piece was Arthur Space, playing a mad scientist who used a growth hormone to develop giant crawfish that he was using to drive the natives off their diamond-rich land. PANTHER GIRL OF THE CONGO was Republic's second to the last serial, and is generally regarded in the light of a "so-bad-it's-good" flick due to the large amounts of stock footage and the rather odd crawfish special effects, but you do have to give Republic credit for trying a new twist with the crawfish idea. They certainly weren't any shoddier than some of the other giant critters featured in the horror movies of the era. The major cast members-- Phyllis, Healey, Space, and Johnny Daheim and Holly Bane as Space's cohorts, gave creditable performances and did their best with the material; at any rate, it was appropriate that Coates, one of the last serial queens, should finish her cliffhanger career in a role so similar to that created by her predecessors Kay Aldridge and Frances Gifford.

Above: Myron Healey and Phyllis Coates look like they have just escaped a watery end in this scene from PANTHER GIRL OF THE CONGO (Republic, 1955), Coates' final serial.

Phyllis continued to act into the late fifties, appearing frequently with Wild Bill Elliott in his A-westerns over at Allied Artists. She retired somewhere around 1958, only to return with a vengeance in the late sixties and early seventies, playing character parts in many TV shows and made-for-TV movies. She even makes an occasional screen appearance to this day. She also finds time to appear at serial festivals, sometimes in tandem with her PANTHER GIRL co-star Myron Healey. I really do enjoy Phyllis's non-Superman filmwork a lot more than I'd let on. Some have said that if she had entered cliffhangers earlier, she would have been the greatest of all serial queens. Maybe. Anyway, I think the expression "better late than never" applies here--maybe she would have had a longer serial career if she had entered cliffhangers earlier, but we're glad that she even entered them at all.