For the textile designer, see Jack Lenor Larsen

Jack Edward Larson (February 8, 1928 – September 20, 2015) was an American actor, librettist, screenwriter and producer. He is best known for his portrayal of photographer/cub reporter Jimmy Olsen on the television series Adventures of Superman.

Biographie

Larson was born in Los Angeles on February 8, 1928 of Swedish and Russian descent, and reared in Pasadena. He graduated from Montebello High School in 1945, aged 17, and at times claimed 1933 as his birth year.

Larson found the role of cub reporter Jimmy Olsen on The Adventures of Superman to be a handicap, because he became typecast as a naive young man. This caused him to do little acting after the show ended in 1958, and instead he focused on behind-the-scenes work, such as writing and production. Larson was always willing to sit for interviews about the Superman series and his connection to it, and in recent years had a number of cameos that paid subtle tribute to his character and the series, including a 1991 episode of the TV series Superboy, alongside Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane in Adventures of Superman, and an episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman as an aged Jimmy Olsen in the episode "Brutal Youth", first telecast on October 20, 1996.

Larson had a cameo in a late-1990s American Express card commercial with Jerry Seinfeld and an animated Superman, directed by David Kellogg. He and Neill provided commentary on several Adventures of Superman episodes for the January 2006 DVD release of the 1953 season, and in 2006, he appeared in Bryan Singer's film Superman Returns in a cameo role as "Bo the Bartender". Larson and Neill appeared together at the premiere of Superman Returns.

Larson most recently appeared in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which aired on the NBC network on January 6, 2010. In this episode, titled "Quickie", Larson portrayed "Dewey Butler", grandfather to a young suspect who was allegedly having unprotected sexual relations with women.

Among his other work, Larson wrote the libretto to the opera Lord Byron to music by Virgil Thomson.