Acting
Mar 20, 1919
Salley, South Carolina, USA
Lois Collier
Acting
Biography
Collier's acting career started in 1938, when she had a small but credited role in A Desperate Adventure, starring Ramon Novarro and Marian Marsh. From 1940 through 1949, her career would be active and somewhat successful, with her playing mostly heroine roles in B-movies. During that period, she often starred opposite western stars Bob Steele, Tom Tyler, and Dennis Moore. In 1950, she starred in the sci-fi serial The Flying Disc Man from Mars. Collier was sometimes called the Fourth Mesquiteer because seven of Republic Pictures' The Three Mesquiteers movies featured her as the female lead. Collier played Carol in the soap opera Dear John, which ran on CBS in the 1930s and 1940s. Beginning December 6, 1948, she was featured in You, a program on KMGM in Los Angeles, California. In 1949, Collier co-starred in City Desk, a drama about activity in the newsroom of a newspaper. From 1950 through 1957, she starred mostly on television series episodes. She played Mary, the hero's girlfriend and sidekick, in 58 episodes of the television series Boston Blackie, which ran from 1951 to 1954. She retired from acting after 1957.
Feature Films (40)
A New York radio personality travels to the small town of Fernville to oversee a contest to identify retired safecracker Jimmy Valentine, believed to be living there under an assumed name. The close-knit town of upstanding citizens is understandably upset by this venture, all the moreso when some of its citizens begin to be murdered. The radio personality and the local newspaper's young daughter collaborate on solving the murders while revealing Valentine, who has become one of the suspects.
The Affairs of Jimmy Valentine
In the gay '90s, cardsharps take over a Mississippi riverboat from a kindly captain. Their first act is to change the showboat into a floating gambling house. A ham actor and his bumbling sidekick try to devise a way to help the captain regain ownership of the vessel.
The Naughty Nineties
The Marx Brothers are employed at a hotel in postwar Casablanca, where a ring of Nazis is trying to recover a cache of stolen treasure.
A Night in Casablanca
Donald Lewis is a low-paid clerk in a high-profile shipbuilding firm. When the company is robbed in broad daylight, Lewis gathers up $100,000 on his own and skeedaddles, figuring that the lost funds will be attributed to the holdup. Before his girlfriend Ginny can persuade him to go straight, the hapless Lewis finds himself hotly pursued by cops and crooks alike.
Out of the Storm
After bringing his beautiful new wife Paula home to America from a remote island on which she was raised, Professor Norman Reed begins to feel the clash between his world of rational science and hers of bizarre dancing and freaky voodoo rituals. Norman's stuck-up friends also sense Paula's strangeness, and soon their meddling gossip and suspicious scheming push the poor woman to use her magic to defend herself and her husband – and maybe even to kill! Or is it just the power of suggestion...?
Weird Woman
A widowed lecturer's two grown children try to break up what they believe is her inappropriate romance with a staid college professor.
Young Ideas
When a conniving female singer turns up dead, with the evidence pointing to the band’s drummer, jazz trumpeter Danny Brooks attempts to clear him—only to implicate himself and the rest of the band in the process. Can a jazz-loving police detective and Danny’s fiancée solve the case before the next downbeat?
The Crimson Canary
A warlord from Mars recruits an Earth industrialist with a Nazi past to manufacture weapons by means of which Mars can take over the Earth. Feature version of the 1951 movie serial "Flying Disc Man from Mars".
Missile Monsters
Eleven Gilbert & Sullivan numbers are melded within the murder-mystery plot of "Girl on the Spot", with a result that either G&S and/or the plot are always seemingly on stage-wait or in the wings awaiting a cue. Lois Collier is the girl-on-the-spot of the title because she was on the scene of a murder. The police conclude she didn't do it and they use her to set a trap for the real killer, a G&S addict, by financing a Broadway production starring Collier.
Girl on the Spot
Daggett is out to stop the completion of an oil well. He cheats Foster at poker and then forces him to delay the drilling. But the Mesquiteers are on the job with Lulaby posing as a cleaning lady to get evidence.
Raiders of the Range
In 1937 the life in out West has not changed much. The boys are working at the Wyoming ranch of Captain Marvin herding horses which he sells to Kurt Redman. Marvin will not sell any horses to any army, but the boys find out that Redman is a German agent shipping the horses directly to the Third Reich. When Marvin tries to stop Redman, his son Tad, who is studying medicine in Germany, is arrested and held hostage. Marvin must fire the boys as the sneaky German agents take over the ranch, but the boys will not give up their attempt to stop them.
The Phantom Plainsmen
Tongue-in-cheek adventure tale of an American attempting to free sailors held as hostages and becoming involved in middle-East tribal wars.
Slave Girl
Television & Series (3)
Blackie and gal pal Mary, and their dog Whitey, solve lots of Los Angeles crimes before the cops can do it.
Boston Blackie
Presented by Eastman Kodak, this show was a series of original scripts directed by acclaimed directors and featuring well-known performers. The stories ranged from musicals to comedies and dramas.
Screen Director's Playhouse
Dick Tracy is an American TV series based on the detective comic strip Dick Tracy. The show aired on ABC from September 11, 1950 to April 7, 1951.