The retired actress Phyllis Coates was born in Wichita Falls, Texas, on January 15, 1927. Her career lasted more than fifty years. She attended high school in Odessa before moving to Los Angeles with her mother. Coates attended Los Angeles City College.
Phyllis may be most known for her portrayal of reporter Lois Lane in the 1951 movie Superman and the Mole Men and the first season of the television series Adventures of Superman. Coates, who was first recognized by her birth name Gypsy Stell, was discovered in a café by vaudeville comic Ken Murray, whom she studied comedy timing with.
Then, for 10 months, she performed as a dancer and comedienne in sketches on Blackouts, his “racy” (very obscene) variety show. Later, she appeared in the Earl Carroll Theatre as one of his showgirls. She took part in a 1946 USO performance of Anything Goes when she was on tour.
When she was 17 years old, on July 13, 1944, she “began her work with 20th Century Fox… after receiving a seven-year contract with option.” Coates made a brief appearance in “How Death Valley Got Its Name,” the inaugural episode of the anthology series Death Valley Days, which aired in 1952. In the Death Valley Days episode “The Light On The Mountain” from 1954, she made an appearance. In the 1959 One in a Hundred episode, Coates played Mary, a widow.
Phyllis Coates parents: Meet Jack Stell
Phyllis Coates’ parents are Lorraine Jack Teel and William Robert Rush Stell. There isn’t a lot of information accessible regarding Phyllis’s parents as of the time of this writing.
