Luana Walters
Acting
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Luana Walters (July 22, 1912 - May 19, 1963) was a motion picture actress from Los Angeles, California. Walters was an expert horsewoman which led to her discovery as an actress at a rodeo in Palm Springs, California. She won a woman's bucking contest which was being watched by a movie scout, who noticed her. Her film career began when she visited a friend on a United Artists lot. Douglas Fairbanks Sr. was excited about her screen possibilities and arranged for a film test. However, only three days later Fairbanks went to Europe, and the test was never completed. Not long afterwards Joe Schenck saw Walters on the dance floor at the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles, California. After viewing the abbreviated test made by Fairbanks, Schenck offered her a contract with United Artists. The studio did not make a movie in the next six months so Walters' option was not taken up. Walters' screen credits start with an uncredited role in Reaching For The Moon (film) (1930). Her skill as an equestrian helped her in parts in westerns like Ride 'Em Cowboy (1936), Where The West Begins (1938), Mexicali Rose (1939), and Law Of The Wolf (1939). On many occasions Walters made films in which her role was cut out. This began when she made Reaching for the Moon (film) with Fairbanks. Her parts were also deleted from Spawn of the North (1938) and Souls At Sea (1937). The former was a Carole Lombard feature and the latter paired Walters with Robert Cummings. Walters was the first actress to portray Superman's biological mother Lara in a live-action format. She appeared in "Superman Comes to Earth", the first chapter of the 1948 Superman movie serial. Portions of this depiction appear in flashback in "At the Mercy of Atom Man!", the seventh chapter of the 1950 serial Atom Man vs. Superman. In the latter portion of her career Walters was in a number of B-Movie films, most of them of the sci-fi and horror genres. She plays a female reporter on the trail of a fiend's story in The Corpse Vanishes (1942), with Bela Lugosi. She appears as a cellblock guard in Girls In Prison (1956). Her final role came in The She Creature (1956). Luana Walters died of liver failure due to alcoholism in Los Angeles in 1963. Description above from the Wikipedia article Luana Walters, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Born: July 22, 1912
Place of Birth: Los Angeles, California, USA
Known For
Filmography
as Cellblock guard
as Newspaper Woman
as Marian Langdon (as Susan Walters)
as Mary Randolph
as Laurie Bishop
as Nancy Kellogg
as Mary Hopkins
as Dora Mason
as Patricia Hunter
as Baltimore Bonnie Dixon
as Fury Shark
as Marcia Banning
as Sandra James
as Ruth Masters
as Anne Woodworth
as Sally Rowell
as Jane Forbes
as Millie
as Carol Thorp
as Mary Wallace
as Nancy Winslow
as Kate Kilgore
as Mary Randolph
as Resort Girl
as Girl at Shower (uncredited)
as Girl Having Her Fortune Told (uncredited)
as Ruth Adams
as Nurse (uncredited)
as Anita Loredo
as Nightclub Girl (uncredited)
as Cigarette Girl
as Angela
as Carol Dean
as Hat Check Girl
as Model (uncredited)
as Woman in Gaming House (uncredited)
as Joan Barry
as Suzette
as Lynne Reed
as Salesgirl (uncredited)
as Dolores de Vargas
as Sonya Rokoff
as Sonya Rokoff
as Lillian Howard
as Juanita Hernandez
as May
as Elinor Gordon
as Jo Ann Carver
as Luana
as Tart (uncredited)
as First Nurse (uncredited)