Julie Adams died earlier this month in Los Angeles, her son Mitchell Danton has said.  Her most famous – and most remembered role would be in The Creature From the Black Lagoon 1954 with Richard Carlson – and The Gill Man

Years ago when my daughter was small,  she had woken up and come through to watch the TV with me when this film was showing as a late night film. She was scared stiff when the Gill Man came up beside the trapped boat on the River in this film. His entrance from the water was really quite scary and very well done.

My daughter mentions it on occasions to this very day.

Above – A very lovely picture of the beautiful Julie Adams

Her career spanned  six decades in film and on television – she starred with Donald O’Connor in Francis Joins the WACS (1954), played opposite Elvis Presley in Tickle Me (1965) and appeared with Dennis Hopper in The Last Movie (1971) and with John Wayne in McQ (1974).

Much later came  Murder, She Wrote where she played  Eve Simpson on the long-running Angela Lansbury series, and in the early 1970s, she portrayed James Stewart’s wife in the legendary actor’s first foray into starring on his own series.

IN Where The River Bends – she was billed as Julia Adams which she very soon after changed to Julie.

Above with James Stewart

Julie Adams – then Julia Adams  – had starred alongside as Arthur Kennedy in Bright Victory (1951),  James Stewart in  Where The River Bends (1952), William Powell in The Treasure of Lost Canyon (1952), Rock Hudson in The Lawless Breed (1953) and Van Heflin in Wings of the Hawk (1953).

As a publicity stunt, Universal Studios once declared her legs “the most perfectly symmetrical in the world” and insured them for $125,000. And in “The Case of the Deadly Verdict,” a 1963 episode of Perry Mason, Adams’ character had the notable distinction of being one of the lawyer’s few clients to be found guilty.

Then the actress was offered the role that assured her a place in monster-movie history.

Seeking to cash in on the growing popularity of 3D films, Universal began production on Creature From the Black Lagoon. Jack Arnold, who had just done It Came From Outer Space, directed this one.

The studio wanted Julie Adams to star as Richard Carlson’s girlfriend, Kay Lawrence, who would become the creature’s object of desire. However at first Julie Adams considered the whole thing a step down in her career.

“I thought, ‘The creature from what? What is this?'” she said in a Television interview in 2013, “because I had been working with some major stars and so on. But I read it and said, ‘If I turn it down, I won’t get paid and I’ll be on suspension.’ And then I thought, ‘What the hay! It might be fun.’ And of course, indeed it was. It was a great pleasure to do the picture.”

BELOW – On this Link View the Thrilling Trailer to the film:

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).  Julie Adams did not appear in those.

In her Horror Society interview, she 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.

She had made her film debut in an uncredited role in Paramount’s Red, Hot and Blue (1949), and after that was cast in a number of Westerns. Then known as Betty Adams, she served as the female fixture in The Dalton Gang (1949), then played the heroine Ann in Hostile Country, Marshal of Helldorado, Crooked River, Colorado Ranger, West of the Brazos and Fast on the Draw — all released in 1950.

She wrote her Autobiography a few years ago

This Book was published only about 8 or 9 years ago

Julie Adams Autobiography would be a fascinating read I think – and I will now probably go out and buy it. There will be some real insights into her famous life and also details of films and film stars she met or worked with along the way in her six decades long film career.