She was 94 and lived in Manhattan and East Hampton, N.Y. The cause was an intestinal blockage, said her daughter, Jane Stanton Hitchcock.
Mrs. Stanton was a dark-haired beauty, model and stage actress before she became a radio star, performing on many shows, including Perry Mason, in which she played the loyal secretary Della Street. But it was as Lois Lane, the intrepid but perpetually imperiled reporter for The Daily Planet, where she was a colleague of Supermans alter ego, Clark Kent, that she became a fixture in pop culture.
The show began in 1940, two years after Superman was introduced in comic-book form, and continued on the radio in various formats until 1951, doing much to establish the character as the quintessential American superhero. Lois Lane first appeared in the seventh episode, and though most sources indicate that Mrs. Stanton was not the first actress cast Superman was played by Bud Collyer she landed the part early in the shows tenure and was heard in hundreds of episodes, becoming the identifiable radio Lois of lore.
She was born Louise Abrass in St. Paul on April 16, 1915, but when she was young, her father died, her mother remarried, and her stepfather moved the family to Brooklyn, where she was raised.
She called herself Joan because she loved the actress Joan Crawford. The origin of Alexander, according to her daughter, remains a mystery. So, for a long while, did an early marriage to the actor John Sylvester White, who eventually became known for playing the school principal, Mr. Woodman, on the television comedy Welcome Back, Kotter.
Until about two years ago, I didnt even know there was a first husband, said Ms. Hitchcock, whose father was Mrs. Stantons second husband, Robert Crowley, a surgeon. Both marriages ended in divorce. In 1954 she married Arthur Stanton, a successful Volkswagen and Audi distributor. He died in 1987.
