
Luana Walters
Personal Info
Known for
Acting
Gender
Female
Birthday
1912-07-22
Day of Death
1963-05-19 (50 years old)
Place of Birth
Los Angeles, California, USA
Luana Walters
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.
Known For
Acting
(1956)
Girls in Prison
as Cellblock guard
(1948)
Arthur Takes Over
as Newspaper Woman
(1947)
Shoot to Kill
as Marian Langdon (as Susan Walters)
(1943)
Drums of Fu Manchu
as Mary Randolph
(1942)
Down Texas Way
as Mary Hopkins
(1942)
The Corpse Vanishes
as Patricia Hunter, Reporter
(1942)
Lawless Plainsmen
as Baltimore Bonnie Dixon
(1942)
Inside the Law
as Dora Mason
(1942)
Captain Midnight
as Fury Shark
(1942)
Thundering Hoofs
as Nancy Kellogg
(1942)
The Lone Star Vigilantes
as Marcia Banning
(1942)
Bad Men of the Hills
as Laurie Bishop
(1941)
No Greater Sin
as Sandra James
(1941)
Arizona Bound
as Ruth Masters
(1941)
Across the Sierras
as Anne Woodworth
(1941)
The Kid's Last Ride
as Sally Rowell
(1940)
Millionaire Playboy
as Resort Girl
(1940)
Misbehaving Husbands
as Jane Forbes
(1940)
The Durango Kid
as Nancy Winslow
(1940)
Drums of Fu Manchu
as Mary Randolph
(1940)
The Range Busters
as Carol Thorp
(1940)
The Tulsa Kid
as Mary Wallace
(1940)
Blondie Plays Cupid
as Millie
(1940)
The Return of Wild Bill
as Kate Kilgore
(1939)
Fangs of the Wild
as Carol Dean
(1939)
Eternally Yours
as Girl at Shower (uncredited)
(1939)
Hotel Imperial
as Nurse (uncredited)
(1939)
Cafe Society
as Cigarette Girl
(1939)
King of Chinatown
as Nightclub Girl (uncredited)
(1939)
Paris Honeymoon
as Angela
(1939)
Honeymoon in Bali
as Girl Having Her Fortune Told (uncredited)
(1939)
(1939)
Mexicali Rose
as Anita Loredo
(1939)
Law of the Wolf
as Ruth Adams
(1938)
Marie Antoinette
as Woman in Gaming House (uncredited)
(1938)
The Buccaneer
as Suzette
(1938)
Assassin of Youth
as Joan Barry
(1938)
Say It in French
as Hat Check Girl
(1938)
Where the West Begins
as Lynne Reed
(1938)
Thanks for the Memory
as Model (uncredited)
(1937)
Youth on Parole
as Salesgirl (uncredited)
(1937)
Under Strange Flags
as Dolores de Vargas
(1936)
Shadow of Chinatown
as Sonya Rokoff
(1936)
Aces and Eights
as Juanita Hernandez
(1936)
Ride 'Em Cowboy
as Lillian Howard
(1936)
Shadow of Chinatown
as Sonya Rokoff
(1936)
The Speed Reporter
as May
(1934)
The Third Sex
as Elinor Gordon
(1933)
Fighting Texans
as Jo Ann Carver
(1932)
Miss Pinkerton
as First Nurse (uncredited)
(1932)
Two Seconds
as Tart (uncredited)
(1932)
End of the Trail
as Luana