Poni Adams

Betty Jane Bierce, better known by her stage name Jane "Poni" Adams (August 7, 1918 – May 21, 2014), and she was selected to be a concert mistress of the all-city high school orchestra of Los Angeles. She received a full scholarship to Juilliard to study violin, which she turned down to spend four years studying at the Pasadena Playhouse.

Acting career After the Playhouse, she got her start on Lux Radio Theatre and then with the Harry Conover Modeling Agency. In the book Westerns Women: Interviews with 50 Leading Ladies of Movie and Television Westerns from the 1930s to the 1960s, Adams said: "I was given that name at the Harry Conover Modeling Agency. Why, I don't know!" Adams modeled for the National Tea Association and served as Dodge Girl for one year.

Military personnel played a role in her change of names from Poni Adams to Jane Adams. A photograph printed in newspapers in 1946 carried the caption: "GI JANE — Jane Adams — formerly Poni Adams — holds some of 32,851 letters her press agent said came from GIs after she appealed for aid in choosing a new name."

Adams' first screen appearance was in So You Want to Give Up Smoking, a short film in 1942.

She may be best known for her role as Nina in House of Dracula (1945), but she also has the distinction of acting in early adaptations of both major DC Comics franchises: Batman, where she played Vicki Vale in the second Batman serial, Batman and Robin, and also a character in the first Superman television series.

Personal life and death On July 27, 1940, Adams married Ensign J. C. H. Smith, a United States Navy officer, in Norfolk, Virginia. He was declared dead on September 15, 1943, in Hawaii, after becoming missing in action during World War II when his ship sank a year earlier.

On July 14, 1945, in Hollywood, California, she married Thomas K. Turnage, an Army lieutenant who went on to become a decorated major general. Turnage served in the Korean War and earned the Distinguished Service Medal and Bronze Star. He later served as the last administrator of the Veterans Administration before the VA became a cabinet department during Ronald Reagan's presidential term.

On May 21, 2014, Adams died in Bellingham, Washington, at the age of 95.

Filmography Short subjects So You Want to Give Up Smoking (Joe McDoakes) (1942)

Feature films

Salome, Where She Danced (1945) Salome Girl (as Poni Adams) Lady on a Train (1945) Circus Club Photographer (uncredited) Code of the Lawless (1945) Julie Randall (as Poni Adams) This Love of Ours (1945) Chorus Girl (uncredited) Trail to Vengeance (1945) Dorothy Jackson (as Poni Adams) House of Dracula (1945) Nina Smooth as Silk (1946) Susan Marlowe Night in Paradise (1946) Lotus (uncredited) The Runaround (1946) Miss Webster (uncredited) Rustler's Round-Up (1946) Josephine 'Jo' Fremont (as Poni Adams) Lawless Breed (1946) Marjorie Bradley Gunman's Code (1946) Laura Burton The Brute Man (1946) Helen Paige He Walked by Night (1948) Nurse Scanion (uncredited) Tarzan's Magic Fountain (1949) Villager (uncredited) Gun Law Justice (1949) Jane Darnton Angels in Disguise (1949) First Nurse Western Renegades (1949) Judy Gordon Master Minds (1949) Nancy Marlowe The Girl from San Lorenzo (1950) Nora Malloy Law of the Panhandle (1950) Margie Kendal Outlaw Gold (1950) Kathy Martin Street Bandits (1951) Jane Phillips

Serials Lost City of the Jungle (1946) Marjorie Elmore Batman and Robin (1949) Vicki Vale

TV Series

Dangerous Assignment (1950) Maria Delgada The Cisco Kid (1950) Nora Malloy The Adventures of Kit Carson (1951)/(1952) Meg Owens/Marguerita Bolton The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok (1951) Peggy Adventures of Superman (1953) Babette DuLoque