Joan Alexander
Encyclopedia
Joan Alexander was an American
actress known for her role as Lois Lane
on radio
's The Adventures of Superman
from the early 1940s to 1951.
.
She became a model and actress, and studied acting in
Europe
with Benno Schneider, a director in the Yiddish theater. Though Abrass later took the first name Joan after the actress Joan Crawford
, the origin of the name Alexander is unknown, according to the actress' family. An early, first marriage in 1944 to actor John Sylvester White
, who would become best-known as Principal Woodman on Welcome Back Kotter, was also unknown to Alexander's family until two years before Alexander's death.
in the superhero
radio program The Adventures of Superman
for more than 1,600 episodes. The series began in 1940, two years after Superman's debut in the modern-day DC Comics
' Action Comics
#1 (June 1938), with Lane first appearing in the seventh episode. Though most sources indicate she was not the first actress cast, Alexander was cast early in the series' run and became the radio role's signature performer.
Initially, the show, which ran through to 1951, was syndicated through the Mutual Broadcasting System
's cornerstone station, WOR
in New York, subsequently taken up by the Mutual network and finally to ABC. Alexander also was heard on Dimension X
and Philo Vance
, Against the Storm
and on Perry Mason
, in the first portrayal of supporting character
Della Street
, secretary to defense attorney Mason.
Alexander additionally provided Lois Lane's voice in the 1940s Fleischer Studios
/Paramount Pictures
(Famous Studios) animated Superman
shorts
. She reprised the role of Lois Lane for one season of the 1966 Filmation
animated series The New Adventures of Superman
.
Robert Crowley. Future author and screenwriter
Jane Stanton Hitchcock (born as Jane Crowley) is their daughter. After that second marriage ended in divorce, Alexander in 1954 or 1955 married Arthur Stanton, chairman of the Orangeburg, New York
-based World-Wide Volkswagen
, at the time the distributor of Volkswagen and Audi
vehicles in New York, New Jersey
, and Connecticut
, and which helped introduce the Volkswagen Beetle
to the U.S. Stanton, who died January 20, 1987, adopted Jane when the girl was 9. The couple's other children were sons Adam (died 1993) and Timothy. The Stantons entertained lavishly at their Manhattan
apartment on the Upper East Side
and their home in East Hampton, New York
; their daughter told The New York Times
that author George Plimpton
proposed to his future wife, Freddy Espy, at one party there, that composer
Leonard Bernstein
sometimes performed at the piano, and that comedy playwright
Neil Simon
wrote a sketch for the daughter's 21st birthday.
Alexander appeared on television
as a regular panelist on the 1951-1955 ABC-TV
game show
The Name's the Same
. She published a small novelty book about pregnancy entitled Grin and Bear It in 1954, reprinted twice in the U.S., in 1960 and 1982. Alexander appeared on Broadway
in Poor Richard by Jean Kerr
in 1964.
In April 2008, Alexander filed a lawsuit
against financial adviser Kenneth I. Starr
, alleging the late Stanton had left Alexander a $70 million estate which, according to court paper, Starr used inappropriately and squandered.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
actress known for her role as Lois Lane
Lois Lane
Lois Lane is a fictional character, the primary love interest of Superman in the comic books of DC Comics. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, she first appeared in Action Comics #1 ....
on radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
's The Adventures of Superman
The Adventures of Superman (radio)
The Adventures of Superman was a long running radio serial that originally aired from 1940 to 1951, adapted from the DC Comics character. ....
from the early 1940s to 1951.
Early life and career
Joan Alexander was born as Louise Abrass in St. Paul, Minnesota to a Lebanese American family. Her father died when she was 3, and when her mother remarried, the family moved to Brooklyn, New York and young Louise was sent to attend a convent school on Long IslandLong Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
.
She became a model and actress, and studied acting in
Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
with Benno Schneider, a director in the Yiddish theater. Though Abrass later took the first name Joan after the actress Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
, the origin of the name Alexander is unknown, according to the actress' family. An early, first marriage in 1944 to actor John Sylvester White
John Sylvester White
John Sylvester White was a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-born American actor.He was best known for his starring role as "Keith Barron" on the television soap opera Search for Tomorrow from 1951 to 1952, and many years later, to a different generation as the crabby, diminutive high school...
, who would become best-known as Principal Woodman on Welcome Back Kotter, was also unknown to Alexander's family until two years before Alexander's death.
Voice of Lois Lane
Joan Alexander portrayed newspaper reporter Lois LaneLois Lane
Lois Lane is a fictional character, the primary love interest of Superman in the comic books of DC Comics. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, she first appeared in Action Comics #1 ....
in the superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...
radio program The Adventures of Superman
The Adventures of Superman (radio)
The Adventures of Superman was a long running radio serial that originally aired from 1940 to 1951, adapted from the DC Comics character. ....
for more than 1,600 episodes. The series began in 1940, two years after Superman's debut in the modern-day DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
' Action Comics
Action Comics
Action Comics is an American comic book series that introduced Superman, the first major superhero character as the term is popularly defined...
#1 (June 1938), with Lane first appearing in the seventh episode. Though most sources indicate she was not the first actress cast, Alexander was cast early in the series' run and became the radio role's signature performer.
Initially, the show, which ran through to 1951, was syndicated through the Mutual Broadcasting System
Mutual Broadcasting System
The Mutual Broadcasting System was an American radio network, in operation from 1934 to 1999. In the golden age of U.S. radio drama, MBS was best known as the original network home of The Lone Ranger and The Adventures of Superman and as the long-time radio residence of The Shadow...
's cornerstone station, WOR
WOR (AM)
WOR is a class A , AM radio station located in New York, New York, U.S., operating on 710 kHz. The station has a talk format and has been owned by Buckley Broadcasting since 1987, after the station was sold by RKO. The station has conservative, or right-of-center hosts.Its call letters have no...
in New York, subsequently taken up by the Mutual network and finally to ABC. Alexander also was heard on Dimension X
Dimension X
Dimension X was an NBC radio program broadcast on an unsponsored, sustaining basis from April 8, 1950 to September 29, 1951. The first 13 episodes were broadcast live, and the remainder were pre-recorded...
and Philo Vance
Philo Vance
Philo Vance featured in 12 crime novels written by S. S. Van Dine , published in the 1920s and 1930s. During that time, Vance was immensely popular in books, movies, and on the radio. He was portrayed as a stylish, even foppish dandy, a New York bon vivant possessing a highly intellectual bent...
, Against the Storm
Against the Storm
Against the Storm is a radio daytime drama which had three separate runs over a 13-year period; the initial run was on the NBC Red Network from October 1939 to December 1942, with revivals of the series on the Mutual from August to October 1949 and ABC from October 1951 to June 1952...
and on Perry Mason
Perry Mason (radio)
The radio criminal serial Perry Mason, based on the novels of Erle Stanley Gardner, was broadcast on CBS Radio from 1943-1955. The series was adapted into Edge of Night which ran on television for an additional 30 years.-Adapting Perry Mason to other media:...
, in the first portrayal of supporting character
Supporting character
A supporting character is a character of a book, play, video game, movie, television or radio show or other form of storytelling usually used to give added dimension to a main character, by adding a relationship with this character...
Della Street
Della Street
Della Street was the fictional secretary of Perry Mason in the long-running series of novels, films, and radio and television programs featuring the fictional defense attorney created by Erle Stanley Gardner.-Description:...
, secretary to defense attorney Mason.
Alexander additionally provided Lois Lane's voice in the 1940s Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios
Fleischer Studios, Inc., was an American corporation which originated as an Animation studio located at 1600 Broadway, New York City, New York...
/Paramount Pictures
Famous Studios
Famous Studios was the animation division of the film studio Paramount Pictures from 1942 to 1967. Famous was founded as a successor company to Fleischer Studios, after Paramount acquired the aforementioned studio and ousted its founders, Max and Dave Fleischer, in 1941...
(Famous Studios) animated Superman
Superman (1940s cartoons)
The Fleischer & Famous Superman cartoons are a series of seventeen animated Technicolor short films released by Paramount Pictures and based upon the comic book character Superman....
shorts
Short subject
A short film is any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. No consensus exists as to where that boundary is drawn: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes or less, including all...
. She reprised the role of Lois Lane for one season of the 1966 Filmation
Filmation
Filmation Associates was an American production company that produced animation and live action programming for television during the latter half of the 20th century. Located in Reseda, California, the animation studio was founded in 1963...
animated series The New Adventures of Superman
The New Adventures of Superman (animated series)
The New Adventures of Superman was a series of six-minute animated Superman adventures produced by Filmation that were broadcast on CBS between 1966 and 1970...
.
Later life and career
Following her divorce from White, Alexander married surgeonSurgeon
In medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...
Robert Crowley. Future author and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
Jane Stanton Hitchcock (born as Jane Crowley) is their daughter. After that second marriage ended in divorce, Alexander in 1954 or 1955 married Arthur Stanton, chairman of the Orangeburg, New York
Orangeburg, New York
Orangeburg hamlet , in the Town of Orangetown Rockland County, New York, United States located north of Tappan; south of Blauvelt; east of Pearl River and west of Piermont...
-based World-Wide Volkswagen
Volkswagen
Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer and is the original and biggest-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, which now also owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania.Volkswagen means "people's car" in German, where it is...
, at the time the distributor of Volkswagen and Audi
Audi
Audi AG is a German automobile manufacturer, from supermini to crossover SUVs in various body styles and price ranges that are marketed under the Audi brand , positioned as the premium brand within the Volkswagen Group....
vehicles in New York, New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, and Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, and which helped introduce the Volkswagen Beetle
Volkswagen Beetle
The Volkswagen Type 1, widely known as the Volkswagen Beetle or Volkswagen Bug, is an economy car produced by the German auto maker Volkswagen from 1938 until 2003...
to the U.S. Stanton, who died January 20, 1987, adopted Jane when the girl was 9. The couple's other children were sons Adam (died 1993) and Timothy. The Stantons entertained lavishly at their Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
apartment on the Upper East Side
Upper East Side
The Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, between Central Park and the East River. The Upper East Side lies within an area bounded by 59th Street to 96th Street, and the East River to Fifth Avenue-Central Park...
and their home in East Hampton, New York
East Hampton (town), New York
The Town of East Hampton is located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, at the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. It is the easternmost town in the state of New York...
; their daughter told The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
that author George Plimpton
George Plimpton
George Ames Plimpton was an American journalist, writer, editor, and actor. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review.-Early life:...
proposed to his future wife, Freddy Espy, at one party there, that composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
sometimes performed at the piano, and that comedy playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
Neil Simon
Neil Simon
Neil Simon is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has written numerous Broadway plays, including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, and The Odd Couple. He won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Lost In Yonkers. He has written the screenplays for several of his plays that...
wrote a sketch for the daughter's 21st birthday.
Alexander appeared on television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
as a regular panelist on the 1951-1955 ABC-TV
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
game show
Game show
A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...
The Name's the Same
The Name's the Same
The Name's the Same is an American game show that was produced by Goodson-Todman for the ABC television network from December 5, 1951 to August 31, 1954, followed by a run from October 25, 1954 to October 7, 1955....
. She published a small novelty book about pregnancy entitled Grin and Bear It in 1954, reprinted twice in the U.S., in 1960 and 1982. Alexander appeared on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in Poor Richard by Jean Kerr
Jean Kerr
Jean Kerr was an American author and playwright born in Scranton, Pennsylvania and best known for her humorous bestseller, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, and the plays King of Hearts and Mary, Mary...
in 1964.
In April 2008, Alexander filed a lawsuit
Lawsuit
A lawsuit or "suit in law" is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff, a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions, demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint...
against financial adviser Kenneth I. Starr
Kenneth I. Starr
Kenneth Ira Starr is a former American certified public accountant and attorney convicted of running a $30 million Ponzi scheme with the money of numerous wealthy and celebrity clients...
, alleging the late Stanton had left Alexander a $70 million estate which, according to court paper, Starr used inappropriately and squandered.