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2007 TV News Archives

April 25, 2007: Midnight Palace Noel Neill Interview

The Midnight Palace website recently conducted a phone interview with Noel Neill, the original Lois Lane, in which they ask her about her early work in movies, working with Kirk Alyn on the "Superman" Serials, working in the 1950s "Adventures of Superman" TV series with George Reeves, and much more.

Here's an excerpt from the interview, which Midnight Palace has both as an audio file and a transcribed text interview on their website:

Q: 1950, Atom Man vs. Superman, which was the second serial, began its run. Of course Superman was extremely popular as a comic book but the serials actually brought the character to the screen for the first time. Do you think the serials paved the way for the 1950s television show?

Noel: Well, I don't really know how they started out. Of course, the comic book company in New York, National Comics, was and still is very popular. In fact, a month or so ago, I was back in New York at a show. I called and had lunch with the gentleman who is the head of it. They said they sell so much of the toys and of course now the DVDs or whatever. I just don't know how that all started. I think maybe they knew that the serials we did were paying off for Columbia, and that might have been a little bit of an influence because naturally any company likes money! But I was quite surprised when the gentleman called me and said "Would you like to play Lois Lane again?". Of course, when I first got the job with Sam Katzman, my agent said: "You're going to be in a series called Superman". Well, so I dashed out to a store to buy comic books because I hadn't read them. I think comic books, in those days and maybe even now, are really a boy's thing. But I went out to see what Lois Lane looked like. Fortunately I was sort of a dark redhead at the time and had long hair, which she had, so that was fine for Mr. Katzman and it was interesting.

Read and/or listen to the complete interview at the Midnight Palace website.