Actress Julie Adams, who rose to fame thanks to her role in the sci-fi classic The Creature From the Black Lagoon, died Sunday (2/3/19) at age 92.

She was born Betty May Adams in Waterloo on October 17th, 1926. Adams moved to Arkansas at age 8, and was crowned Miss Little Rock in 1946 before moving to California to embark on a film career.

Throughout her six-decade-long career, Adams starred alongside legends like Rock Hudson, Charlton Heston, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Dennis Hopper, and even Elvis Presley. At one point, Universal Studios even  declared her legs "the most perfectly symmetrical in the world" and insured them for $125,000.

But it was the role she nearly turned down, Kay Lawrence in 1954's Creature From the Black Lagoon, that solidified her as one of Hollywood's leading ladies.

Creature went on to become a cult classic; director Guillermo Del Toro was such a fan of the film that he used it as inspiration for his 2017 Best Picture winner The Shape of Water, in which the main character falls in love with a mysterious male amphibian creature.

Adams last appeared the 2018 short film The Lucky Southern Star, which was based on her own life.

More From K92.3