![]() ![]() Larson was a producer of several of Bridges’s films. After an affair with actor Montgomery Clift in the 1950s, he had a 35-year relationship with writer and director James Bridges, whose films included “The Paper Chase” (1973), “The China Syndrome” (1979), “Urban Cowboy” (1980) and “Bright Lights, Big City” (1988). Larson, who was gay, was considered something of a pioneer in Hollywood for being open about his sexuality. He made his screen debut in the 1948 World War II drama “Fighter Squadron,” which also featured the first film appearance of actor Rock Hudson. He began to write plays and act in college, where he was spotted by a Warner Bros. Larson dropped out of high school and later enrolled in a program at Pasadena Junior College to earn a high school diploma. (His year of birth was often incorrectly listed as 1933.) His father drove a milk truck his mother was a Western Union clerk.Ī champion bowler in his youth, Mr. Jack Edward Larson was born in Los Angeles on Feb. 8, 1928. Larson dismissed the book in the bluntest terms: “It shouldn’t be called ‘Hollywood Kryptonite’ it should be called ‘Hollywood Kraptonite.’ ” Larson was inevitably brought into the discussion when a 1996 book called “Hollywood Kryptonite” alleged that Reeves was killed by a hit man. It was ruled a suicide, but for years there was speculation that he was murdered. In 1959, Reeves died of a gunshot wound to the head. ![]() White.”Īfter more than 100 episodes, “Adventures of Superman” aired its final show in 1958, then continued in reruns for decades. “I know, chief, but this is important,” Jimmy said. “How many times must I tell you not to barge into my office without knocking?” White said in one episode. He often rushed into the office of Perry White, the Daily Planet’s editor-in-chief, played by John Hamilton, who repeatedly admonished him, “ Don’t call me chief!” Larson uttered a variation of “Golly, it’s great you got here, Superman!”Īmiable and overeager, Olsen was always getting in everyone’s way. Only one person could extricate him from his predicaments. In the meantime, Olsen had a penchant for stumbling into scrapes and finding himself trapped in a cave, tied up in a basement or caught in rising waters. Whenever trouble lurked, Kent sneaked into a convenient door and emerged in his tights and cape, ever the intrepid defender of Truth, Justice and the American Way. Olsen could never figure out that the bespectacled, “mild-mannered” Kent was Superman’s alter ego. Throughout the six-year run of the syndicated series, the naive Olsen was always a step or two behind the Daily Planet’s star reporters, Lois Lane (played by Phyllis Coates and later Noel Neill) and Clark Kent. Larson told the New York Daily News in 1996, “and it absolutely wrecked my acting career.” “I was really bitter for years” about being typecast as Olsen, Mr. In many ways, his diminutive, wet-behind-the-ears character was the one with whom the young viewers of “Superman” most closely identified. Larson an unlikely star, recognized wherever he went. ![]() “It captured the imagination of an entire generation of American kids,” critic Leonard Maltin said in a 2005 documentary accompanying a DVD release of “Adventures of Superman.” Watched mostly by children, the series became one of the first hit shows in the new medium of television. “Adventures of Superman” featured actor George Reeves in the title role as the crime-fighting superhero from the planet Krypton. Larson’s agent told him when he signed on for the part. He needed the $250 per episode that he was paid, so he donned a bow tie and a sweater vest and became the wide-eyed Olsen. Larson had appeared in a few movies and was aspiring to act in serious dramatic roles on Broadway when he was cast in “Adventures of Superman,” which premiered in 1952. He was 87.Ī friend, writer-director Alan Howard, confirmed his death to news outlets. Jack Larson, who played the role of Clark Kent’s sidekick, Jimmy Olsen, the earnest, bumbling cub reporter on the 1950s television series “Adventures of Superman,” and who later became a playwright, librettist and movie producer, died Sept. 20 at his home in Los Angeles. ![]()
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