Heroine of the Month: Nora Lane
Former model Nora Lane had a brief bit of stardom in the silent and early sound eras before a rapid decline to small bit parts in the forties. Taking a screen test as a lark she was signed to FBO (better known today as RKO) and made her debut in the Flying U Ranch (1927) with Tom Tyler. She went on to make Texas Tornado (1928) and The Lawless Legion (1929). Her first sound western was Lucky Larkin (1930) with Ken Maynard.
During this time she made her only serial, Mascot’s King of Wild (1931), trying to protect her brother’s diamond discovery as well as help prove hero Walter Miller did not kill an Indian potentate. A difficult task even if she wasn’t being menaced by a pre-Frankenstein Boris Karloff.
The thirties were a good time for her as she was a popular b-western, star playing opposite Tim McCoy in The Outlaw Deputy (1935) and William Boyd in Hopalong Rides Again (1937) and Cassidy of Bar 20 (1938). Then suddenly after Tim McCoy’s Texas Renegades (1940), Lane was not in demand anymore, playing bit parts in serials like Dick Tracy vs Crime, Inc (1941) and The Masked Marvel (1943), and features like The Fighting Seabees (1944), usually as a secretary.
Her last known screen appearance is an uncredited bit part in Lake Placide Serenade (1944). Her tragic suicide in 1948 is attributed to despair over not finding any film work.
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