I didn't actually read a lot of it. I started reading it and I kept coming across words that were foreign ( presumably Yiddish ) and then there were things I didn't agree with, and things that were demonstrably wrong.
This book tells you that when Superman first came to Earth, he landed in Kansas. The original comics didn't have anything of the kind in them. Early on they mentioned Cleveland, Ohio as the city where Superman was living and the implication was that he came to Earth someplace closer than Kansas, although this place wasn't specified. You might compare it to Li'l Abner's starting out in Dogpatch, Kentucky and going to New York in some of his adventures.
Then there's the "Starchild" business. Starchild I remember first from the term being used in other science fiction stories, such as Jack Williamson's "Starchild Triology". Later on I saw in one of the Christopher Reeve Superman novelizations that they were saying that "Kal-El" meant "Starchild". I don't think it goes any further back than that in Superman stories.
On page 97 we are told that "shorts" ( meaning serials - the individual episodes were short subjects, the total being considered a serial ) "often" failed and were then sold to less critical foreign countries. I don't know how many of the serials were considered failures when they were originally made, but they were supplied to the theaters along with the studio's feature films and it doesn't look like there should have been that much of a problem as long as the studio continued to make a profit. They had a guaranteed income as long as they were run in the theaters. Reasons given for the discontinuation of the serials involve things like rising cost and competition from television, but these affected the entire industry and not just certain serials.
Then there was the notorious incident* in the tv episode "The Unholy Three" where the old woman in the wheelchair was pushed down the steps. Here you get the impression that she was killed. It tells you that the man who had previously killed his uncle uncle in this episode but failed to kill Perry White and Jimmy Olsen "did manage to viciously silence a wheelchair-bound old lady named Elsa by shoving her and her chair down a ramp to the basement. Splat." Actually she was shown still alive at the end of the episode.
Noel Neill is said to have not gotten any residuals for the show. Other sources have said that she got some residuals, although these didn't last long.
Finally, the book is not neutral where Noel Neill and Phyllis Coates are being discussed. It tells you that some people had complaints about Noel Neill, but fails to mention any kind of criticism of Phyllis Coates. And then there's the matter of how Noel Neill and Phyllis Coates are said to feel about each other. It says the two didn't like each other. From what I remember, Phyllis Coates is the one that said that, not Noel Neill. So it could even be something Phyllis Coates came up with on her own.
The whole book is one-sided, and it sure isn't on my side.
For anyone wanting to read a history of Superman, I recommend Les Daniels' book, SUPERMAN: THE COMPLETE HISTORY.
This one is actually pretty good, and has a lot of illustrations. Even the cover looks better to me.
And for those who are interested in Noel Neill I recommend this book:
by Larry Ward, who actually knows Noel Neill.
And this one, by the same author.
Recommended, as they say, by Noel Neill.
If nobody likes her, how can they manage to sell any of these books?
* Not just fans, but even some of the people who worked on the show complained about this scene.
Norman Tokar (?-?) Richard L. Bare (1948-1949) (divorced)
Robert Nelms (1950-1953) (divorced) 1 child
Dr. Bernard Press (1962-1968) (divorced) 3 children
Coates played a strong-willed Lois Lane in the first 26 episodes of Adventures of Superman, where she was given equal billing with George Reeves (insisted on by Reeves), even for episodes in which she did not appear. Her powerful "damsel in distress" scream was used to good effect in several episodes.
After shooting for the first season, the Superman producers suspended production until they found a national sponsor. When it came time to film more Superman episodes, Coates had already committed herself elsewhere. Noel Neill, who had played Lois Lane in the 1948-1950 serials opposite Kirk Alyn, succeeded her and became far more identified with the role.
Later years
Coates generally tried to distance herself from the Superman series, fearing it might limit her roles. She did make a guest appearance as Lois Lane's mother in the first season finale of the 1990s TV series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.[1]
Her Superman fame has obscured the fact that Coates was one of Hollywood's most dependable actresses of the period. She freelanced steadily, appearing in low-budget features, westerns, serials, and the "McDoakes" shorts. Her best-remembered films of the 1950s are Blues Busters with The Bowery Boys (in which she has a musical number), Panther Girl of the Kongo, a jungle serial in which she starred, and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein.
She accepted the role in 1957's The Incredible Petrified World (1957), a science fiction film starring John Carradine, as a favor to its director, Jerry Warren, who was a former boyfriend. The actress originally cast in the lead couldn't do it and Warren couldn't find anyone else in time. He persuaded Coates to do it by telling her that the film would not be shown in California. However, after it was completed, she found out that Warren did indeed release the film in California, and she was told by at least one studio executive at Columbia that the film was so inferior and shoddy that the studio would not be hiring her again. On top of that, Warren never paid her. It was only theatrically released on April 16, 1960, on a double bill with "Teenage Zombies".
Her other television appearances included three appearances on the Perry Mason episodes, "The Case of the Black-Eyed Blonde," (1958) "The Case of the Cowardly Lion" (1961), and "The Case of the Ice-Cold Hands" (1964). She also appeared on The Cisco Kid, The Adventures of Kit Carson (twice as June Sanders), It's a Great Life, Frontier, The Abbott and Costello Show, The DuPont Show with June Allyson (as Penny in the 1960 episode "The Trench Coat", along with David Niven and Lyle Talbot), Leave It to Beaver, Gunsmoke (as a duplicitous villainess trying to have her husband murdered), Rawhide (Season 1/20 as Nora Sage), General Electric Theater, The Lone Ranger, The Untouchables (in Season 1 as a two-timing showgirl playing opposite Cameron Mitchell), and The Patty Duke Show.
In 1951, Phyllis Coates was cast as "Lois Lane" in SUPERMAN AND THE MOLE MEN.
"This is a job for - PHYLLIS COATES!"
And stuck with the part through the first season of THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN. The credits gave her costar billing, but the series tended to put more emphasis on Jack Larsen as "Jimmy Olsen", a character and a format taken from the old radio show. Frequently "Lois Lane" would appear only briefly. Even when she was important in one of the stories, such as "The Human Bomb" or "Night Of Terror", sooner or later the emphasis would usually shift away from her again to Jack Larsen.
Phyllis Coates didn't seem to think too highly of the whole thing ( she described SUPERMAN AND THE MOLE MEN as "crock of crap" ) and left for a part in another series. She was replaced by Noel Neill, who had played Lois Lane in the serials. Although Lois Lane became more important in the program and began to actually resemble the character in the comics, the emphasis on Jimmy Olsen remained and eventually Jack Larsen was even billed over Noel Neill in the end credits.
The program Phyllis Coates had pinned her hopes on failed. She worked in different things, frequently with boyfriend John Hart on THE LONE RANGER ( a teaming of "the other Lone Ranger" with "the other Lois Lane" ),
She too wore a mask on a Clayton Moore episode
and made the serial PANTHER GIRL OF THE CONGO.
Looks like she's had another run-in with the octopus.
This part required her to wear a costume like Francis Gifford's in the old serial JUNGLE GIRL so they could match stock footage.
Looks like her friend there is using another costume from the earlier serial.
That might be the same elephant, too.
The fearsome monster on the poster is actually one of the "claw monsters" or giant crayfish featured in the story, played by ordinary crayfish made to appear gigantic through special effects. But the serials were on the way out ( this was the second to last one released by Republic ), and working in a serial did nothing to enhance her image.
Being in TEENAGE FRANKENSTIEN didn't help, either.
Being associated with a Jerry Warren production looked bad. And Phyllis Coates said that she wasn't even paid what she was owed for working on it.
Of course, all these things have their fans today. Even Jerry Warren films.
I always liked BLUES BUSTERS.
And the Bowery Boys films still have their fans.
But after all these years and after many different roles, Phyllis Coates is still best remembered for having played Lois Lane. And also remembered for having been one of the glamour girls.
And for being one of the "Sweater Girls."
She may not have been one of the most outstanding ( matter of fact, she wore falsies, as Grossman documents in his book SUPERMAN, FROM SERIAL TO CERIAL ), but she was in there trying. So why make any kind of argument about any one of the sweater girls in that period being to blame for something that was a widespread phenomena of the time?
One more thing:
Remember the way they used to tie up Noel Neill when she played Lois Lane? They tied Jane Adams up that way, too.
As well as some of the other girls. Including Phyllis Coates.
"Night Of Terror", THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, 1951.
"It's an oft-told story, but
probably more appropriate to this list than
most.
It starts with Otto
Binder. Binder wanted to write for Marvel (in the
mid-'60s) and Stan refused
to let him, feeling (rightfully) that Otto
did not "get" and could not write
in the current Marvel style. So Otto
made an end-run, going over Stan's head
to Martin Goodman and to Bantam
Books. He talked Bantam into doing
Marvel-character novels (this was
when Batman was coming on TV and there was
a big (but shallow) public
interest in comics.
At this same time I had
wanted to do a Batman novel, and my agent had
talked Bantam into it -- until
they discovered Signet Books had first
refusal on all books originating from
DC Comics characters (Signet was
then distributed by IND). I'd primed the
pump, but Otto brought them
Marvel, and contracted to write an Avengers book.
(Goodman would not
license the biggest characters, Spider-Man and Fantastic
Four.)
When Stan found out, he was infuriated. He knew Binder was wrong
for
the project, and he told Bantam they should get me to do the
second
book, on Captain America. I'd met Stan a year or two earlier, when
we
were both guests on a late-night radio show, and we'd gotten along
quite
well. He asked me to write for Marvel, but I had no confidence
in
myself as a comics writer; I was a writer of prose fiction (and a
jazz
critic and a journalist).
Stan knew I "got" Marvel, so when he
recommended me to Bantam, and
Bantam already knew who I was (from the Batman
proposal) all it took was
a half-hour conversation with the Bantam editor
(mostly, as it turned
out, about Ross Macdonald, whom we both liked a lot and
Bantam
published) and a handshake and I had the contract. My agent
even
negotiated a clause giving me "royalties" if/when the book
passed
certain sales milestones, even though I could not own the property;
it
was essentially Work For Hire.
I originally wanted to redo the plot
of my Batman book as the Captain
America book, but when I discussed it with
Stan, he talked me out of
it. So I hatched a brand new plot, involving the
robbery of the Federal
Reserve Bank in lower Manhattan, which at that time
had more gold stocks
than Fort Knox.
My influences were Ian Flemming
(James Bond) and Lester Dent (Doc
Savage) -- which is why I put Monk from Doc
Savage in the opening
chapters of the book (and ended up offending some Doc
Savage fans,
*sigh*). I felt it should be a fast-moving pulp-adventure story.
I had
a lot of fun writing it. One Sunday I drove to lower Manhattan
and
walked the area around the Federal Reserve Bank to get the feel of
it.
When I got home I wrote the first two chapters immediately
(finished
copy). I finished the book in less than two weeks, and it
virtually
wrote itself. (I loved the unmasking scene; I'd wanted to see a
scene
like that for years.)
I turned in copies of the manuscript to
both Bantam and Stan. Stan
couldn't bring himself to read it and gave it to
Roy Thomas to vet. (I
don't think Stan *ever* read it.) Roy was a friend of
mine and he liked
it and even incorporated elements of it (the description of
the Avengers
HQ) into that year's AVENGERS ANNUAL.
I wrote it in the
fall of 1966 for publication in early 1967. January,
1967, Bantam brought out
Binder's Avengers book. It was *awful*. It
opened with a chapter which
described the Avengers' *costumes* in
tedious detail, without the glimmerings
of a *story*. There was no
"hook" to pull the readers in. There was instead
an opening guaranteed
to repel anyone who read it. The book stiffed,
sales-wise.
So Bantam sat on my book for a year, publishing it in the
late spring of
1968. By then the boomlet of interest in such books had peaked
and
declined. It never sold more than its first printing (maybe
95,000
copies), although I think it did sell that printing out eventually.
I
never received any additional royalties.
I think Marvel owns the
book and it *could* be republished any time they
wished to. But I know that
when all those Marvel novelizations were
coming out in the late '70s and
early '80s, Marv Wolfman (who was in
charge of that project) refused to use
it. People have told me that was
because my book was much better than those
Wolfman produced, but I never
read them, so I can't say that. I can say that
Marv butchered another
book of mine (DOC PHOENIX: THE OZ ENCOUNTER) and that
my opinion of him
is not high.
Hope that answers your
questions.
--Ted White"
THE GREAT GOLD STEAL was published by Bantam books. This was the same publisher that was putting out the Doc Savage books, it was similar to the Doc Savage books, and even featured Monk Mayfair as one of the charachters in the story. He got killed during the course
of the story, but I don't supposed that mattered very much as Monk continued to
appear in other adventures afterwords.
I think this is one of the better Captain America stories I have read, although it changed a few details, such as Captain America's having metal bones. The Red Skull is still a communist in this story, like in the 1950's comics, although later stories would have it that the Red Skull had never been a communist and that the 1950's version was an impostor. But I never paid much attention to that business anyway.
And here's the Captain America book that came out in the 1970's. I didn't think it was as good as the other book, myself.
When Captain America was revived in the 1960's, they changed the name of the girlfriend character from "Betsy Ross" to "Sharon Carter".
Betsy Ross had been used in the original run of the comic and last appeared during the short-lived 1950's revival.
But both times, the girl character had been called "Agent Thirteen" before they said anything else.
In her first appearance, she looked like Dale Arden, and once Steve Rogers got the superman formula, he resembled Flash Gordon.
In the next story the girl is called Betty Ross. She appears to be about the same character, but has blonde hair.
When the series was revived in the 1960's, TALES OF SUSPENSE #64 retold the same story with the same characters, only this time the blonde was called "Agent Thirteen". The story was still supposed to be set in World War II.
When the setting of the stories was changed to the present day, the girl was still called that.
This "Agent Thirteen" was named Sharon Carter, and later on they would say that the girl in their World War II story was her older sister Peggy. Which is complicated somewhat by the fact that in the actual wartime stories the girlfriend was called Betty Ross, and that it's also been said that it was still her in the 1960's World War II story.
Here, Agent Thirteen is also called "Irma", which could be a reference to "My Friend Irma"- Marvel had also published those comics.
With issue #100, TALES OF SUSPENSE became CAPTAIN AMERICA.
Sharon Carter is featured on the cover along with Captain America's other allies.
Jack Kirby, one of the originators of Captain America who had drawn the stories in TALES OF SUSPENSE, continued to draw the early issues in this series. Steranko drew some issues, and then other artists. I didn't read a lot of the comics from this period. The first ones we had were the stories with the "Grey Gargoyle".
Sharon Carter in peril.
I always liked this story, but then, when I got some of the other comics from this period, there were some I didn't like so much.
The new Captain America series introduced a new sidekick, "The Falcon". The Falcon was black, and the stories began to involve racism. Somthing that had been a part of the old comics, as Captain America had fought the nazis, a racist movement.
CAPTAIN AMERICA #156 had a strange story where there was supposed to be another Captain America, a bigoted bad guy who fought with the "real" Captain America,
and Sharon Carter, who was with the "real" one
along with Captain America's new sidekick the Falcon they helped fight Captain America and Bucky, the sidekick they had in the old comics..
Great emphasis is put on Captain America and Bucky getting beat up in this story.
I don't know if any of the actual villians in this period in Captain America comics were ever battered with such loving detail. It actually comes across as kind of funny, sort of like Popeye.
Actually the whole thing was like a story told by a crazy man. Captain America fighting Captain America makes even less sense when you consider that in the old comics Captain America was supposed to be the same guy all along and continued to associate with some of the same people up until the 1960's revival, at which point they simply disregarded whatever they wanted to do without.
Finally, it got to where it wasn't enough to just have Captain America and Bucky being bad guys, Sharon Carter had to be an enemy, too.
Sharon Carter somehow ends up on the same side as Captain America ( the bad guy ) and runs around shooting people and stuff like that
until all the bad guys just suddenly burn up
Including Sharon Carter, although this isn't made clear at the time.
As if Bucky hadn't been beat up enough already the last time, Captain America finally kills him.
But we're supposed to know this is OK because they're using Captain America as the bad guy again, and we are not to confuse him with Captain America being the good guy.
When about the same story was done over again in WHAT IF? #44, they no longer have the girl switch sides. Instead, they just have her being one of the bad guys.
And they're using the name "Golden Girl" again, whereas they ordinarily claimed that was a separate character from "Sharon Carter", Betty Ross. Bucky of course is one of the bad guys, as is Hawkeye ( one of the Avengers ).
Spiderman, Nick Fury, and the Falcon are in the story on the side of Captain America ( the other one, that is )
Although it isn't really clear that's the Falcon, since he's called "Snap Wilson", which was using a nickname ( he was Sam Wilson in the first place and "Snap" was something they came up with later on when they changed his origin story ). By the way, this story also has it that Captain America is putting people into concentration camps, just like Hitler. This causes the minority groups to oppose him and side with Captain America, although you would think that even if there were two of them that angle might cause some problems. Something like telling people during World War II that Hitler is on your side and will help you fight against the Hitler that started the whole thing to begin with.
"Golden Girl" as she is called here, is depicted as being cowardly and runs away when the fighting starts.
Leaving it up to his sidekicks to deal with everyone else, Captain America informs Captain America that this is going to be a fight between Captain Americas.
You can count on Captain America to win, because he's the hero in this story. As well as the villian. But why are most of the sidekicks from past issues on the side of the one that's supposed to be the impostor? Incidentally, while Nick Fury got to be one of the good guys in this story, it seems that later on he got a chance to be one of the bad guys, too.
Hawkeye was also killed eventually in another story, although they might have brought him back again, as they eventually did with both Sharon Carter and Bucky. As well as Captain America himself, who likewise eventually turned out to not be dead after all. Not only that, but they seem to have done it with "both" Captain Americas. The "other" Bucky, too. But I stopped reading these comics years ago, so I don't know all the details.
I got rid of WHAT IF #44 right after I read it, same as the issue of the AVENGERS where Ant-Man hit the Wasp. I did keep CAPTAIN AMERICA #156, where Captain America first beat up Captain America, just because it's old. CAPTAIN AMERICA #233 I passed up because I didn't like the idea of Sharon Carter being one of the bad guys.
When Captain America keeps fighting his former companions as well as himself, it makes it look like the people responsible for these comics hate their own characters. It could also be that they think that they're somehow getting back at Jack Kirby, the co-creator ( with Joe Simon ) of Captain America who had gone to work for rival DC comics when all this stuff started. The character of Sharon Carter's last major involvement in a Captain America story was in Kirby's last work on the title in 1977. Not much was done with the character between that time and when they killed her off.*
My brother Dale says that they used to draw Sharon Carter off of actress Stella Stevens,
who was also in the Jerry Lewis movie THE NUTTY PROFESSOR and then was drawn in Jerry Lewis comics, too.
"Gail Richards" has been used by Marvel for Captain America's fiance during World War II. This name was used in the serial CAPTAIN AMERICA ( 1944 )
and had also been used for Joan Blondell's character in the movie TOPPER RETURNS ( 1941 ).
The Captain America serial changed many details. In spite of made during World War II, in his secret identity he is a District Attorney named Grant Gardner instead of being a soldier named Steve Rogers. He uses a gun instead of a shield and doesn't have a sidekick named Bucky. The changes to the character of Captain America have frequently been remarked upon, but nobody ever seems to mention that they changed the girlfriend character as well. Betty Ross in the comics was ordinarily a blonde and was a secret agent, while Gail Richards was a brunette and was the D.A's secretary.
The character of Gail Richards was played by Lorna Gray.
Lorna Gray (born July 26, 1917) is an American film actress known for her comic roles and later as a villainess. She is best known for her roles in Columbia Pictures comedy shorts and Republic Pictures serials.
Career
She was born Virginia Pound in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Before appearing in films, Gray sang with a group in Cleveland called Ben Yost's Varsity Coeds, who performed primarily in movie theaters before the movie began. Although she had a film test at Universal Studios and a brief contract with Paramount Pictures, she made her first big film for Columbia Pictures.
As a Columbia contract player she appeared in the studio's shorts and serials, including Flying G-Men (starring Robert Paige), Pest from the West (starring Buster Keaton), and You Nazty Spy! (starring The Three Stooges). When her Columbia contract lapsed, she found work at Monogram Pictures, where she worked with action star Frankie Darro.
Gray also starred opposite John Wayne in Red River Range and appeared in the title role in O, My Darling Clementine.
In her Paramount films, such as Hold 'Em Navy, she was credited as Virginia Pound, but she was given the name Lorna Gray by Columbia and she used it from 1938 until 1945, when she left Columbia and moved to Republic Pictures. She appeared as Lorna Gray in Republic's Federal Operator 99, but subsequently adopted the name Adrian Booth, which she has used ever since.[1]
She married actor David Brian and retired from motion pictures. As Adrian Booth, she was awarded the Golden Boot Award in 1998 and has been attending film festivals into her nineties.[1] She appeared as a guest at the annual Three Stooges convention held in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, on April 30, 2011.
CAPTAIN AMERICA #219 had a story where the heroine of the serial is called "Adrian" because Lorna Gray was also known as Adrian Booth. However, this character was blonde like Sharon Carter instead of being a brunette like Adrian Booth.
There has also been a "Gail Runciter" in comics with Captain America.
This is about the same character as Sharon Carter under a different name, although it's the same first name as the serial character had. Since they brought Sharon Carter back, it's almost the same thing as having two of them. I just hope they don't decide that the Sharon Carter from the earlier comics is an impostor.
* When I checked, I could only find two brief appearances of Sharon Carter shortly after Kirby was taken off the title ( CA # 217 and #218 ), which was to follow up on what Kirby had done. The character doesn't seem to have appeared again until they started the story where they killed the character off.
Agent Thirteen Inroduction In TOS #64 - Animated Version
Special thanks to my brother Dale for identifying the art as having been drawn off of Stella Stevens and making the collage comparing her with the comics character.
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