Creature from the Black Lagoon star
Julie Adams Hollywood actress BORN OCTOBER 17, 1926 – DIED FEBRUARY 3, 2019, AGED 92
WHEN Julie Adams appeared in a 1954 remake of the beauty and the beast story, entitled Creature From The Black Lagoon, she was the swimwear-suited eye candy that drew the attentions of a humanoid amphibian, called the Gill Man.
But, despite the cheesy script, there was depth in Adams’ performance and the thwarted romance between her character Kay Lawrence and the misunderstood monster later inspired writerdirector Guillermo del Toro to make the 2017 Oscar-winning film The Shape Of Water.
Del Toro, who had loved the Creature From The Black Lagoon since childhood, had long envisaged creating a film with a more tender outcome and the emphasis on the creature’s point of view.
“I mourn Julie Adams’ passing,” said Del Toro of her death. “It hurts a place deep in me, where monsters swim.”
After being catapulted to fame by the cult horror flick, Adams appeared in more than 50 films and numerous television episodes. She went on to star with some of Hollywood’s leading men, including Elvis Presley in 1965’s Tickle Me and Dennis Hopper in 1971’s The Last Movie.
She also had guest-star roles in popular TV series including The Streets Of San Francisco, The Incredible Hulk, Cagney & Lacey, and appeared in ten episodes of Murder, She Wrote.
Born Betty May Adams, in 1946, at the age of 19 she was crowned “Miss Little Rock” and moved to Hollywood, California, to pursue her dream of a career in the movies.
She changed her name to Julia, later Julie, after signing a studio contract with Universal in 1949 and took acting lessons while working as a secretary. She met the then unknown stars Rock Hudson – with whom she later starred in The Lawless Breed – and Tony Curtis, and began her career in B-movie Westerns. She had a short-lived first marriage to screenwriter Leonard Stern, before marrying her second husband, Ray Danton, who was her co-star in the 1955 action film, The Looters.
The couple, who divorced in 1981, had two children. She went on to have a long-term relationship with another screenwriter Ronald M Cohen who wrote Last Stand At Saber River, starring Tom Selleck.