Margot Kidder Made Us Fall In Love With Lois Lane, Forever

When I was a little girl, I would often get in fights with my older sister over Margot Kidder‘s Lois Lane.

“She’s not pretty enough for Superman!” she would snarl. “Superman is the greatest hero on Earth. He’s hot, he’s smart, he’s strong, he’s fast, he can fly, and he’s a good guy. He should be with the most beautiful woman on Earth, not…her.”

First, I would always argue that Margot Kidder was empirically beautiful — in a devastatingly sharp way that always evoked both the young Katharine Hepburn and the Greek goddess Athena in my imagination — and then I would argue that wasn’t the point.

Superman doesn’t fall in love with Lois Lane because she’s a beauty queen, or a damsel in distress, or a protected princess kept in an ivory tower under lock and key. He falls in love with her because she’s a scrappy crusader fighting to uncover the truth. Lois is an ambitious underdog whose hastily typed newspaper articles have as many scoops as grammatical mistakes. She’s sharp, she’s tough, and she’s courageous in the face of doom. Superman may indeed be stronger, tougher, and faster than every other man on Earth, but Lois is just a normal woman — and yet she has the guts to fight the same fights Superman does without all his extra abilities.

Superman doesn’t fall in love with Lois Lane’s looks, but her super-sized spirit.

Margot Kidder seemed to understand this aspect of Lois Lane’s mythos. She plays Lois not as a paint-by-numbers “girlfriend,” but a ferociously independent woman. Christopher Reeve famously looked to Cary Grant’s doddering turn in Bringing Up Baby for inspiration for his take on Clark Kent, and it’s impossible that Kidder didn’t also look to the grand dames of ’30s cinema for some of Lois’s fire. Kidder plays Lois with the rat-a-tat line delivery of Rosalind Russell, the urbane hauteur of Katharine Hepburn, and the slapstick rhythm of Carole Lombard. Furthermore, Kidder never plays Lois like a complete throwback. Rather, her Lois Lane marries the bold spirit of 1970s women’s liberation with the scrappy determination found in the heroines of old school film noir. Ironically, it’s this approach that lets her Lois fit seamlessly in modern life while still feeling like a loving nod to the 1930s Detective Comics that launched the character.

Miraculously, the Lois we meet in Superman is tough and determined, yet as cynical as she is, she wants to be dazzled by the soaring sensation of hope that a real hero like Superman represents. Kidder tackles her scenes with a rare combination of brittle strength and awestruck romance. When Superman drops in for a surprise interview, Kidder juggles a whole range of emotions: she’s surprised, determined, nervous, flirtatious, self-aware, totally charmed, and completely charming.

Lois Lane is also deeply flawed. She misspells words and steps into trouble, she smokes cigarettes and she sometimes says the uncouth thing. Kidder’s Lois is flawed, but that doesn’t mean she stops trying. There’s a shimmering resilience to everything she does. It’s so captivating that you understand first why Clark can look at Lois professionally and feel a little intimidated, and later you see why Superman himself can gaze upon Lois with such admiration. Lois Lane has every reason to give up in the face of adversity, to crumble when challenged, and to assume she’s not good enough for Superman — but she never does.

I’ve always thought that it says a lot about Superman that Lois Lane is the woman he falls in love with. Other heroes may go through love interests like suit upgrades, but not Superman. (Yes, I know Lana Lang is a thing, but Superman is forever linked to Lois.) Like Marvel’s Captain America, Superman is a hero who represents upstanding moral nobility, and so it’s interesting that both Cap and Superman fall hard for strong, smart, capable, independent women in their mythologies. It not only suggests that Superman respects women as three-dimensional individuals, but what he admires most in Lois is her personality. She’s a supernova’s worth of fire contained in a single, indefatigable journalist.

It was reported today that Margot Kidder has passed away at the age of 69. Kidder kept working in B-films until her death, but she will forever be remembered for her turn as Lois Lane. Amy Adams, Teri Hatcher, Kate Bosworth, and a string of other actresses might take their turn at the role, but Lois Lane will always be Kidder’s. Margot Kidder played Lois Lane as a three-dimensional woman — which is impressive considering the character is a two-dimensional comic book icon — and because she did that, everyone will fall in love with Lois Lane forever.

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