- Born
- Died
- Birth nameJack Edward Larson
- Nickname
- Junior
- Height5′ 7″ (1.70 m)
- Jack Edward Larson was born in Los Angeles, California, to Anita (Calicoff) and George E. Larson. He was raised in Pasadena, and attended Pasadena Junior College (by coincidence, exactly as did his Adventures of Superman (1952) co-star George Reeves). He was a contract player at Warner Bros. Typecast as Jimmy Olsen, Larson found it virtually impossible to get other acting roles after the series went off the air and retired from acting a few years later, concentrating on writing. His plays have been highly acclaimed and he has had works performed in theaters and opera houses around the world. He was the longtime companion of late director James Bridges, with whom he co-produced a number of popular films of the 1970s and 1980s. Larson was an erudite and charming man who seems to have been close friends with many of the more prominent figures of the arts in the latter half of the 20th century, including Virgil Thomson, John Houseman, Leslie Caron, Libby Holman, Montgomery Clift, Salka Viertel, Christopher Isherwood and James Dean. Larson died of natural causes while relaxing on the deck of his Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles, at the age of 87.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>
- In 2006, he told The New York Times that he quit acting in 1961 on the advice of his then-boyfriend Montgomery Clift. Larson had gone to an audition for producer Mervyn LeRoy, who had rejected Larson right away because he had played Jimmy Olsen. Clift counseled Larson not to put himself in that situation any longer, so Larson concentrated instead on producing and writing, becoming the first playwright to win a Rockefeller Foundation grant.
- Like George Reeves, Larson claimed that he did not want to do the role of Jimmy Olsen in the Adventures of Superman (1952) television series. His agent told him to do the role, take the money and that it would probably never be seen.
- Famed as Jimmy Olsen on TV's Adventures of Superman (1952), he is also a well-respected playwright and opera librettist whose collaborators include Virgil Thomson.
- Was the life-partner of writer/director James Bridges of Urban Cowboy (1980) and The China Syndrome (1979) fame. Their relationship lasted over thirty years until Bridges' death in 1993.
- Participates in a UCLA scholarship program established in the name of his life partner, the late writer/director James Bridges, for young directors.
- [Why he hasn't gone to fan events since a 1988 Cleveland celebration of the 50th anniversary of Adventures of Superman (1952)] . . . thousands of people [were] coming at us with pictures to autograph and Sharpie pens. And I had this beautiful white linen suit from Venice, made at the Piazza San Marco. The best cleaners in Brentwood couldn't get the ink stains out of that suit.
- [on being best known for playing Jimmy Olsen in Adventures of Superman (1952)] I feel completely at peace with that. You are blessed in life if you can give people pleasure and happiness. That's all I've ever tried to do with my work. If I've learned anything from my career, it's that you don't really know the value of what you're doing. So, you had better do your best with whatever is at hand. You never know what will outlive you.
- Adventures of Superman (1952) - $350 /episode
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