Jack Larson, Actor-Writer Who Was One Of The Last Links To Old Gay Hollywood, Has Died

Jack Larson, an actor-writer who is best-known to the general public for his role as cub reporter-photographer Jimmy Olsen in the popular television series Adventures of Superman from 1952-58, has died at age 87. During a career that spanned more than six decades, Larson worked or became friends with countless entertainment industry legends and was a sought-after interview for books and documentaries about Old Hollywood and its personalities, such as James Dean and Greta Garbo.

Larson had an intimate relationship with late actor Montgomery Clift during the 1950s and a long-lasting romantic and professional partnership with film director James Bridges that endured 35 years, until Bridges’s death in 1993. Although he still made occasional appearances before the camera (he appeared in an American Express commercial with Jerry Seinfeld and a 2010 episode of Law & Order: SVU), Larson produced many films that Bridges directed, and he kept busy writing numerous plays and even librettos for various operas like Virgil Thomson’s Lord Byron. As one of the last great raconteurs, here’s hoping that he secretly completed a memoir before his death.

In 2011 Larson spoke to the Los Angeles Times about his relationship with Bridges, saying, “It was obvious to anyone that since we lived together we were partners. We always went places together. We never pretended. I always did what I felt like doing. I never did publicity when I was very popular as Jimmy. The question [about being gay] never came up.”