She was a damsel-in-distress from a bygone era when ladies still needed saving and the creatures all fell in love with them. Julie Adams acted on TV in Perry Mason and Murder, She Wrote, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Night Gallery, and The Incredible Hulk. She also found great success in film roles opposite Elvis Presley in Tickle Me (1965), with Dennis Hopper in The Last Movie (1971) and with John Wayne in McQ (1974).
But it was her iconic and timeless role as Kay Lawrence, the object of the Gill-Man’s desire in Universal Studios’ incomparable THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON that has endeared her to generations of fans and placed her securely in the top-tier of genre movie history.
From The Hollywood Reporter:
“Creature From the Black Lagoon has become a cult classic, with Gill-Man joining the pantheon of Universal legendary monsters alongside Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man and The Mummy. It spawned the sequels Revenge of the Creature (1955), also in 3D, and The Creature Walks Among Us(1956). Adams did not appear in those…In her Horror Society interview, Adams offered one reason why the first film remains so popular. ‘I think the best thing about the picture is that we do feel for the creature. We feel for him and his predicament,’ she said.”
From Syfy.com:
“While remakes of the project have stopped and stalled over the years, the famous source material has continued to inspire new generations of directors. After more than 60 years, the dynamic put forth in Creature From the Black Lagoon was turned on its head by Guillermo del Toro in 2017’s The Shape of Water….Adams is survived by the two sons she had with her second husband, Ray Danton: Steven and Mitchell. In 2011, she published an autobiography, The Lucky Southern Star: Reflections From the Black Lagoon.”
