From the 1930s to the early 1950s, B-westerns were an indispensable part of filmgoing in the US and the UK. Often shot in five days or less, for as little as $10,000, they included plenty of action, but not much psychology or soppy stuff involving women. The heroine was crucial, inspiring the cowboy to feats of derring-do.
One such heroine was Lois Hall, who has died aged 80. She appeared in nine B-westerns and six serials between 1949 and 1952; she was rescued from danger by Charles Starrett as The Durango Kid in Horsemen of the Sierras (1949), Texas Dynamo and Frontier Outpost (both 1950), by Whip Wilson in Cherokee Uprising (1950) and Night Raiders (1952), and by Johnny Mack Brown in Colorado Ambush, Blazing Bullets (both 1951) and Texas City (1952).
Born in Minnesota, Hall moved to California with her family at a young age. At 18, she won an acting scholarship to the Pasadena Playhouse, before breaking into films. After two bit parts, she won the title role in Daughter of the Jungle (1949), a low-budget female version of Tarzan, in which, as the flaxen-haired Ticoora, she yodelled while swinging from tree to tree, wrestled a crocodile and handled a gorilla that attacked her village (all, except the yodel, thanks to a stunt double). She had to wear the same costume used by Frances Gifford in the 1941 serial Jungle Girl to match the clips from the earlier movie. In later years, she claimed to be proud that it was on a list of the 100 worst films ever made.
In the same year as Daughter of the Jungle, Hall portrayed the Lady of the Lake in 15 episodes of The Adventures of Sir Galahad, with future television Superman George Reeves in the title role. This was followed by another 15-episode series, Pirates of the High Seas (1950), which starred Buster Crabbe. On the first day of the shoot, when the 24-year-old Hall was introduced to the 40-something Crabbe, she said, "I used to watch your movies when I was a kid." Crabbe, whose glory days as Tarzan and Flash Gordon were over, was not amused and relations between them were never more than cordial.
At the beginning of the 1950s, Hall moved to television, appearing in western serials such as The Range Rider, The Cisco Kid (both 1951-52) and The Lone Ranger (1952-53), all featuring disguised heroes with sidekicks, who ride into towns, flirt with the local beauty (often Hall) and ride away again.
In 1955, two years after marrying Maurice Willows, Hall retired to bring up her three daughters and became active within the Los Angeles Baha'i community, planning cross-cultural events and helping to arrange classes for deprived young people. Unaware of her show business past, other members knew her simply as Miss Loey or Mrs Willows.
She took up acting again in the 1970s, appearing in television episodes of Little House on the Prairie (1983), Star Trek: the Next Generation (1989), Six Feet Under (2004) and Nip and Tuck (2005). She also had smallish roles in several films, notably Kenneth Branagh's thriller Dead Again (1991). Her husband died in 1995; her daughters survive her.
· Lois Hall, actor, born August 22 1926; died December 21 2006