Happy Birthday, Joan Alexander

For multiple generations of kids - those who listened on radio and saw the theatrical cartoons and later those who tuned in for the Filmation TV series - Joan Alexander was the voice of Lois Lane. Born April 16, 1915, she was a model and an actress touring with the Yiddish theater before she got into radio. Her birth name was Louise Abrass; she took the first name Joan after big screen star Joan Crawford. Joan Alexander worked extensively on the air with major roles on several daytime soaps like Lone Journey, Light of the World and This Is Nora Drake. She was in the "girl Friday" business for a pair of radio detectives as Della Street on Perry Mason and Ellen Deering, secretary to Jackson Beck's Philo Vance. Elsewhere, she could be heard on Dimension X, Crime Club, Barrie Craig, and more. But it's the role of Lois Lane, tough, resourceful reporter, for which Joan Alexander is best remembered. She was the third actress to play the role, but she was cast early in the run and made the part her own. Alexander would co-star with Clayton "Bud" Collyer (voice of Clark Kent and Superman) in over 1,600 radio episodes. The two also voiced their characters in the popular (and still riveting, even today) Superman cartoons produced by Fleischer Studios and released theatrically. From 1940 until 1951, Joan Alexander gave voice to one of the most well-known comic book characters of all time, and she helped to cement the character of Lois as a heroine in her own right. Almost every subsequent portrayal of the star reporter owes something to Alexander's performance. Bud Collyer loved working with her, telling a reporter that "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." The two reunited in 1966 as Lois and Clark in The New Adventures of Superman, an animated Saturday morning series produced by Filmation. 

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