Joan Alexander, the original Lois Lane, dead at 94

Joan Alexander, a leading radio actress of the 1940s best known for playing Lois Lane, the ace reporter who was constantly being rescued from peril by Superman, died May 21 at New York Presbyterian Hospital of an intestinal ailment. She was 94.

After an early modeling and stage career, Alexander became a versatile performer on dozens of radio serials, notably as the loyal secretary Della Street in “Perry Mason.” She played recurring characters on radio soap operas and dramas including “Lone Journey,” “Light of the World” and “This is Nora Drake.”

But Alexander achieved her greatest prominence — and enduring fame among devoted Superman fans — as one of the handful of women to portray Lane, an intrepid reporter for the fictitious Daily Planet. According to many sources, she was the third actress cast as Lane in the serial “The Adventures of Superman,” which first aired in February 1940 on New York station WOR and reached a broad audience through syndication on the Mutual network.

For the next decade, Alexander was heard playing opposite actor Bud Collyer as Superman, the Man of Steel from planet Krypton who saves Lane from enemy agents during wartime and from various other foes bent on destroying the American way of life. By day, Superman disguises himself as Lane’s nerdy, fumbling newsroom colleague, Clark Kent.

Collyer once told an interviewer, “Joan is one of those rare actresses — especially in radio where you can’t be seen and have to depend entirely on voice — who can go in on something cold and her instincts are so right as an actress that without even a rehearsal or a read-through, she is right.”