Phyllis Coates was born Gypsie Ann Evarts Stell on January 15 1927 in Wichita Falls, Texas. She came to Hollywood when she was still a teenager. She was discovered by vaudevillian Ken Murray in a restaurant at Hollywood and Vine. For ten months she appeared as a comedienne and dancer in Ken Murray's show Blackouts. She was later a showgirl in at the Earl Carroll Theatre. In 1946 she toured with production of Anything Goes put on by the USO.
Miss Coates made her television debut in 1946 in the soap opera Faraway Hill, using the stage name Ann Stell. She signed with Warner Bros. and made her film debut in the "Joe McDoakes" theatrical short ""So You Want to Be in Politics" in 1958 She played Alice, the wife of Joe McDoakes (played by George O'Hanlon). From 1948 to 1954 she played Alice in over 25 more Joe McDoakes shorts. She made her feature film debut in an uncredited role in Smart Girls Don't Talk (1948). In the late Forties she appeared in the films A Kiss in the Dark (1949), Look for the Silver Lining (1949), The House Across the Street (1949), My Foolish Heart (1949), My Blue Heaven (1950), Blues Busters (1950), and Outlaws of Texas (1950). She guest starred on the TV shows Your Show Time and The Cisco Kid. From the late Forties into the early Fifties, Phyllis Coates was also a popular pin-up girl.
It was in the 1951 feature film Superman and the Mole Men that Phyllis Coates first played Lois Lane. It was the first feature film based on Superman, or any other DC Comics character. The movie served as a trial for the TV series Adventures of Superman, which debuted in 1952. Phyllis Coates reprised her role as Lois Lane in the first season of the show. Phyllis Coates did not return to Adventures of Superman for its second season as she had signed onto a pilot for a prospective television series with Jack Carson and Allen Jenkins. Noel Neill, who had played Lois Lane in the serials starring Kirk Alyn as Superman, then took over the role of Lois Lane on Adventures of Superman.
On television in the Fifties she was also a regular on the short-lived TV shows The Duke and This is Alice. She guest starred on the shows The Cisco Kid; Racket Squad; The Range Rider; The Files of Jeffrey Jones; Craig Kennedy, Criminologist; Ramar of the Jungle; I'm the Law; The Red Skelton Show; Your Jeweller's Showcase; The Abbott & Costello Show; Terry and the Pirates; Summer Theatre; Crown Theatre with Gloria Swanson; Public Defender; Professional Father; Topper; Cavalcade of America; The Millionaire; The Lone Ranger; Willy; Stage 7; Science Fiction Theatre; Lassie; The Great Gildersleeve; Frontier; The Fisher Family; TV Readers Digest; Navy Log; Four Star Playhouse; It's a Great Life; Chevron Hall of Stars; Crossroads; Disneyland; Leave It to Beaver; The Sheriff of Cochise; General Electric Theatre; Richard Diamond, Private Detective; Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse; Black Saddle; Lux Playhouse; Hennesey; The DuPont Show with June Allyson; Hawaiian Eye; The Best of the Post; Wells Fargo; Rawhide; The Untouchables; Perry Mason; Gunsmoke; Iand Death Valley Days.
In 1956 Phyllis Coates returned to the role of Alice in the "Joe McDoakes" shorts, appearing the last few shorts in the series. In the Fifties she appeared in the movies Valentino (1951), Man from Sonora (1951), Canyon Raiders (1951), Nevada Badmen (1951), Oklahoma Justice (1951), The Longhorn (1951), Stage to Blue River (1951), The Gunman (1952), Fargo (1952), Canyon Ambush (1952), Flat Top (1952), Wyoming Roundup (1952), Invasion, U.S.A. (1952), The Maverick (1952), Scorching Fury (1952), Jungle Drums of Africa (1953), Marshal of Cedar Rock (1953), She's Back on Broadway (1953), Perils of the Jungle (1953), Topeka (1953), Here Comes the Girls (1953), El Paso Stampede (1953), Gunfighters of the Northwest (1954), Panther Girl of the Congo(1955), Girls in Prison (1956), I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957), Blood Arrow (1958), Cattle Empire (1958), and The Incredible Petrified World (1959).
In the Sixties Miss Coates guest starred on the shows Gunslinger, Tales of Wells Fargo, Rawhide, The Untouchables, Perry Mason, The Virginian, The Patty Duke Show, Gunsmoke, Death Valley Days, Slatterly's People; and Summer Fun (1966). She appeared in the movie The Baby Maker (1970).
Following her marriage to Dr. Howard Press in 1962, Phyllis Coates went into semi-retirement. After they divorced in 1986, she appeared in the 1989 TV movie Kiss Shot and the 1991 TV movie Mrs. Lambert Remembers Love. She appeared in the films Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn (1989) and Hollywood: The Movie (1996). She guest starred on the shows Midnight Caller and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. She also guest starred in the 1994 Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman episode "The House of Luthor," playing Ellen Lane, the mother of Lois Lane.
Phyllis Coates spent much of her time in B-movies and on television, but she was a remarkable actress nonetheless. On Adventures of Superman she played Lois Lane as a determined reporter, who was always out to scoop Clark Kent with regards to stories. As Alice in the "Joe McDoakes" shorts, she was Joe's intelligent, competent, and attractive wife who always got the better of him. In the cult classic I Was a Teenage Frankenstein, she played Margaret, Professor Frankenstein's secretary, who realizes that what her boss is doing isn't exactly ethical. In the Tales of Wells Fargo episode "Alias Jim Hardie," Phyllis Coates played a role quite different from Alice and Lois. She played Pat Denton, a clerk who tries to help an outlaw impersonating Wells Fargo agent Jim Hardie rob a Wells Fargo office. In the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Black-Eyed Blonde," she played a character even further from Alice and Lois. She played Norma Carter, a woman who not only committed murder, but plotted to sell the murder victim's son to someone else. Phyllis Coates may always be remembered as Lois Lane, but she played a wide variety of roles in her career, many of them quite different from any other role she played.
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