Jack Larson, TV’s Original Jimmy Olsen, Dead at 87
Jack Larson, the first actor to portray Superman’s pal Jimmy Olsen on television, passed away Sunday at his home in Brentwood, California. He was 87. The news was confirmed by longtime friend Alan Howard.
Larson took the role of Jimmy Olsen in 1951, playing opposite George Reeves and Noel Neill in The Adventures of Superman. Fully expecting the show to go nowhere because it didn’t have a sponsor, Larson found himself in the role until 1958 and then found that the show had derailed his chances of working as a Broadway actor. Faced with typecasting because of his role as Olsen, he turned to his original passion of writing plays and librettos.
His libretto for Virgil Thomson’s Lord Byron, commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera in New York, had its premiere in 1972 at the Juilliard Theater. Chuck, a play Larson wrote in 1968 as part of a collection of short programs, was considered “what may be the evening’s most provocative sketch” by Walter Kerr of the New York Times.
Larson’s verse play The Candied House was a retelling of the tale of Hansel and Gretel. Opening in 1966, it was met by this in the Los Angeles Times: “It’s a joy to hear from a man who loves and respects words and does not see language as the enemy of images.” Larson was also the first playwright to be awarded a grant by the Rockefeller Foundation.
Although most of his work in film was behind the camera as a producer [The Baby Maker (1970), Perfect (1985), Bright Lights, Big City (1988)], he occasionally returned to acting on television, mostly in roles related to Superman, appearing in The Adventures of Superboy, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and in Superman Returns.
