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