Julie Adams, an actress best known for playing the damsel in distress in the 1954 monster movie “Creature From the Black Lagoon,” died Sunday at age 92, according to her official website.
Guillermo del Toro, whose 2017 Oscar winner “The Shape of Water” was inspired by the Universal cult classic, paid tribute to Adams online. “I mourn Julie Adams passing. It hurts in a place deep in me, where monsters swim.”
During her long career in Hollywood, Adams starred opposite Rock Hudson in 1953’s “Lawless Breed,” Van Helfin in 1953’s “Wings of the Hawk” Elvis Presley in “Tickle Me,” and Dennis Hopper in 1971’s “The Last Movie.”
Her most recent film credit was a voiceover in Roman Polanski’s 2011 drama “Carnage.”
The Iowa native also had a long career in television, notably playing the Cabot Cove real estate agent Eve Simpson opposite Angela Lansbury in the long-running mystery “Murder, She Wrote” in the 1980s and early ’90s.
She also appeared on shows like “Perry Mason,” “Quincy” and the short-lived early ’70s series “The Jimmy Stewart Show” as Stewart’s wife.
But she will be best remembered for her role in “Creature From the Black Lagoon,” a horror movie update on “The Beauty and the Beast” that she was at first reluctant to do despite being under contract at Universal.
“I think the best thing about the picture is that we do feel for the creature,” she said in a 2013 interview with Horror Society. “We feel for him and his predicament.”
Del Toro and other fans were quick to way in with tributes to Adams.
I mourn Julie Adams passing. It hurts in a place deep in me, where monsters swim. https://t.co/yYGWR1oDyH
— Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) February 4, 2019
Julie Adams has returned to the Black Lagoon. The scene of you swimming while The Creature mirrored your moves underwater is every awkward heart yearning for someone in the sunshine to reach down and just see them. Iconic forever. #RIPJulieAdams
— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) February 4, 2019