Joanne Siegel

Joanne Siegel
Siegel at the 1976 San Diego Comic Con
Born	Jolan Kovacs (1917-12-01)December 1, 1917 Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.
Died	February 12, 2011(2011-02-12) (aged 93) Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Spouse(s)	Jerry Siegel (m. 1948)
Children	1

Joanne Siegel (born Jolan Kovacs; December 1, 1917 – February 12, 2011) was an American model, who in the 1930s worked with Superman creator Joe Shuster as the model for Lois Lane, Superman's love interest. She later married Superman's co-creator Jerry Siegel and sued for restoration of her husband's authorship copyright in the Superman character.

Siegel was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1917, the daughter of Hungarian immigrants. In 1935, while still attending high school, she placed an advertisement in Cleveland's The Plain Dealer offering her services as a model. The ad stated: "Situation Wanted — Female ARTIST MODEL: No experience." Joe Shuster, who was working on a new comic character, Superman, responded to the ad. Prior to the modeling sessions, Shuster's co-creator, Jerry Siegel, had developed an idea for a journalist to be Superman's love interest, Lois Lane. Shuster hired her as a model for Lois, and his depiction of Lois was based on his drawings of her hairstyle and facial features. Interviewed in 1996 by The Plain Dealer, she recalled, "I remember the day I met Jerry in Joe's living room. Jerry was the model for Superman. He was standing there in a Superman-like pose. He said their character was going to fly through the air, and he leaped off the couch to demonstrate."The New York Times wrote, "Ms. Siegel was the first in a long line of Lois Lanes, who have included Phyllis Coates, Noel Neill, Teri Hatcher, and Erica Durance on television, as well as Margot Kidder in the movies."

Following her modeling work for Shuster, she worked as an artist's model, sometimes using the professional name "Joanne Carter". She worked for a ship builder in California during World War II. After the war, Siegel moved to New York, where she ran into Jerry Siegel at a costume ball to raise money for cartoonists. Both had been married and divorced previously. They were married in 1948. And lived in Connecticut and New York before moving to California in the 1960s. They remain married until Jerry Siegel's death in 1996. They have a daughter together, Laura Siegel, who later recalled, "My father said she not only posed for the character but from the day he met her it was her personality that he infused into the character. She was not only beautiful but very smart and determined, and she had a lot of guts; she was a courageous person." In a profile of Joanne Siegel, NPR noted, "Though a number of actresses played [Lois Lane] on television and in the movies over the years, Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel always said that his wife, Joanne ... inspired the character of Lois Lane."