The first actress to play Lois Lane on television, Phyllis Coates, passed away Wednesday at the age of 96.

Coates starred along George Reeves in the black-and-white first season of The Adventures of Superman as well as the Superman and the Mole Men film. She only stayed for one season, at which point Noel Neill, who portrayed Lois in the Kirk Alyn Superman movie serials, took over for the rest of the series.

Younger fans might remember Ms. Coates from her appearance as Lois Lane’s mother, Ellen, in the Season 1 finale of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. She also did two episodes of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman around that time. Like the classic Adventures of Superman, she never returned beyond Season 1 of Lois & Clark; in future appearances, Ellen was played by the late Beverly Garland.

Coates’ performance as Lois Lane, although only for that one season, was very well remembered and is one of the reasons that some fans actually prefer the early black-and-white stories. She started on a path on live-action television later taken by such great actresses as Noel Neill, Teri Hatcher, Erica Durance, and Bitsie Tulloch. Our condolences go to her friends and family.

Superman hit his 85th anniversary this year, and the coming weeks will see the release of what is described as “the most comprehensive oral history of Superman committed to print” – Voices from Krypton by author Edward Gross. Voices from Krypton combines over 85 years of Superman’s legacy into a sweeping tale of how the champion of the oppressed became one of the world’s most recognizable pop culture icons. If you’ve followed Superman media and interviews at all in recent years, you’ve surely read some of the fantastic interviews that Ed Gross has conducted in his productive career as an entertainment journalist.

Voices From Krypton has a foreword by Brandon Routh and such folks as Tom Welling, Henry Cavill, and Zack Snyder are interviewed within. There’s even material related to the Nicolas Cage Superman film that never happened. You may also see some familiar names inside – including KryptonSite’s own Craig Byrne and Always Hold On To Smallville host and creator Zach Moore.

KryptonSite had the opportunity to interview Ed Gross about the book so you can see and know why this is a “must-read” for this site’s audience. Enjoy:

KRYPTONSITE’S CRAIG BYRNE: How long has this book been in the works?

EDWARD GROSS: That’s kind of a trick question, because in my mind, when wasn’t this book in the works? Ever since I became an entertainment journalist a little over 40 years ago, I’ve been lucky enough to have my pop culture passions dovetail with my work. When it came to Superman — and this was the same with Star Trek, James Bond, etc. — I’ve always looked for every opportunity I could find to cover the character, whether that be in movies, television, comic books or whatever. It could be talking to director Lee Sholem about Superman and the Mole Men, Deborah Joy Levine along with cast and crew about Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman; looking back at the Christopher Reeve movies through detailed conversations with the likes of Richard Donner, Richard Lester, David and Leslie Newman and so on; chronicling the adventures of Superboy with John Haymes Newton, Stacy Haiduk and Gerard Christopher; being there on the ground floor of Smallville in terms of coverage, speaking to the creatives behind Superman Returns or Man of Steel, digging in deep with Tyler Hoechlin, going over Superman: Birthright issue-by-issue with writer Mark Waid … just a seeming endless stream of conversations, enhanced even more by myriad new ones conducted for Voices from Krypton. All of it came together in this book, which is probably one of those I’ve written or co-written that I’m most proud of.

Can you share some of the books you have written in the past that might be of note to the KryptonSite/KSiteTV audience?

I guess that depends on how many members of that audience is like me, driven by a multitude of passions. Somehow — and I’m still trying to figure it out myself — since 2016 I’ve either written or co-written 11 oral histories and am in the middle of the 12th, and I can honestly say they were all driven by an interest in the subject matter. This includes Star Trek (the two-volume The Fifty-Year Mission), Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (Slayers & Vampires), Battlestar Galactica, both old and new (So Say We All), James Bond (Nobody Does It Better), Star Wars (Secrets of the Force), John Wick (They Shouldn’t Have Killed His Dog), Stargate SG-1 (May’s Chevrons Locked), of course Superman (Voices from Krypton), forthcoming titles on Indiana Jones and Harry Potter, and at the moment I’m in the midst of one on Planet of the Apes. On top of all of that, in non-oral history style, there are new titles coming on the ‘80s TV series Beauty and the Beast (Above & Below: The Unofficial 35th Anniversary companion) and Classic TV (one volume on Action & Drama, another on sitcoms). The trick is absolutely loving what you do, which is the case. Even after all these years, I still welcome the opportunity to get behind the keyboard and do what I do.

Since KryptonSite first got known as a hub for Smallville, are there some interviews of note for that fandom?

In the writing of Voices from Krypton, what I gradually realized is that in some ways this is actually a combination of a bunch of mini-books, each attempting to give proper due to different versions of Superman. The section on the show spans about 30,000 words and besides archived interviews gathered over the years, what was thrilling was discovering the number of people involved with the show that remembered me and were delighted to talk about the series from the perspective of looking backwards, which resulted in a kind of candor that never would have happened while the show was in production. They couldn’t.

Are there any archive interviews included as well?

The interviews in this book consist of a combination of largely new, original ones; conversations taken from old cassettes in my “archives” (a bunch of boxes in my basement), many of which are with people who are no longer with us; and a number of very generous people who gave me permission to use interviews they conducted with people I’d never gotten the opportunity to speak with.

Was there a particular interview for this book that really stood out to you to be able to do?

You know, having done literally thousands of interviews over the years, I can’t say that there was one that made me go, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I got to speak to….” That being said, I absolutely love the interview process; the opportunity to have conversations with all of these people and if I could just speak to them and not have to write them up, I’d be okay with that. The interviewees, of course, wouldn’t. I will say what did stand out is that I did not have one conversation where the person I was speaking with didn’t have a clarity of thought in their feelings about the subject, what Superman has meant to them and the character’s history. It was genuinely fascinating to experience that.

How long has Superman been a part of your personal life and career experience?

As I’d mentioned, insofar as my career is concerned, Superman has been a part of it from almost the beginning. In my personal life … the answer’s almost the same. I was born in 1960 and about five years later I discovered reruns of George Reeves’ Adventures of Superman and fell in love with the character. Shortly thereafter, my father, who loved dogs, picked up a comic book titled The History of Dogs, which caused me to fall in love with the comic book medium. And then I discovered that there were comic books of Superman and that was it. I began collecting any comic with the “S” and quickly amassed quite a collection. This was followed by the arrival of Filmation’s The New Adventures of Superman on Saturday mornings in 1966 and it went on from there. Although Christopher Reeve is my favorite Superman, I go where the character goes and whoever plays him. I suppose it’s the same feeling I have for James Bond, which brought me from Sean Connery to George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig. And like Superman, I’m ready for whoever it is that picks up 007’s license to kill. Superman: Legacy? Whoever it is that dons the costume, bring him on!

Voices from Krypton: The Unofficial, Unauthorized Oral History of Superman will be published by Nacelle Books June 6, 2023, and is available now for pre-order at a discounted price from Amazon and wherever books are sold.