Jimmy Olsen, cub reporter, and best friend of Clark Kent, was played to perfection by actor, Jack Larson, on Superman (1952-1958). Superman was not a popular show on TV...it was the most popular show on TV. Drawing weekly viewers in numbers greater than Christ’s “Sermon On The Mount.” Superman was one of the first TV shows broadcast in color. (The first two seasons were broadcast in glorious black in white). Color TV was still a new technology. Many Americans did not own a TV set, let alone a color one. Those who did, had living rooms packed with neighbors on any given evening to see what color Perry Como’s cardigan was, or how pink Dinah Shore's dress was.
TV was still in its infancy. This this a time before the remote control, when you had to stand up, and walk over to the TV set to change the channel. There were only three networks, and not a lot of choices. Today we have over 500 channels, and still do not have a lot of choice. In order to receive a picture, the TV set had to angled towards the transmitting station, wherever that was, then the set had to warm up, then the parental figure (read: father) needed to fiddle with a series of knobs to adjust the image, adjust the color contrast, the brightness, the horizontal/vertical hold, the sharpness and then came the artful ballet of antenna movement, and just when you got it, you couldn’t move, like anyone in the room, you were frozen, any sudden activity, and you had to start all over again. It was bliss!
One helpful way broadcasters used to standardize the medium so that images approximated the correct shade of yellow, red, blue or green is that performers (or set dressers) relied on a series of colors that viewers could easily match up to. One color in the trade was known as “Jimmy Olsen blue“. Jimmy Olsen often wore the same shade of blue sweater vest, (just like in the comic strip, there was little variation). Every American had read the comic books, the Sunday (color) newspaper strips, or had seen the animated Max Fleisher series at the movies. Therefore, it was easy to adjust your set to Jimmy Olsen’s blue sweater. It was a universally understood color.
Jimmy Olsen blue was such a defining color that when Superman went off the air (although the show was more popular in syndication) set decorators painted their sets the same shade of blue. Indeed, nearly every other TV show had a kitchen, bedroom, or bathroom painted “Jimmy Olsen blue“. It's a classic middle blue, cool, calm and slightly vivacious, (just a hint of brightness).
Back-story: despite a success that should have propelled his career, Jack Larson was unfortunately type cast, and few jobs were offered to him. “Golly jeepers, Mister Kent!”
Larson was baited by the Jimmy Olsen persona. Perhaps Larson’s talent was his downfall. Like a method actor, Larson inhabited Jimmy Olsen. Larson had the ability to play a buffoon, with intelligence, empathy and drive. Jimmy Olsen as played by Larson was cute, and even somewhat sexy. I used to love the episode when there was a hoodlum that looked just like Jimmy Olsen, naturally, the real Jimmy was bound and gagged in some dingy basement by the no-good-nik. Here you see Larson's range, here you see Larson really go for broke, the hoodlum posing as Olsen, flirts with Lois Lane, he goads Perry White, exercises his masculine prowless and even tries to threaten Clark Kent. How could there not be some sexual tension between Jimmy Olsen and a hunk in tights. There was alway a sub-textual coded homo-erotic text in the Superman comic books, and even once in a while on the TV series. Even the Christopher Reeves films achnowledge it. Anyway, Jimmy Olsen as a bad boy. I ate it up! Jimmy Olsen, in the comic strip, and radio series, was primarily used as a bland stock device to forward the plot whenever Clark Kent needed to provide exposition. However, in watching the show, if you dissect Larson’s performance, you will see a gifted actor, instinctualy aware of what’s going on around him, playing unbelievable scenes from a point of innocence and authenticity. Jimmy Olsen was so beloved that producers and directors, (unlike other talent expected to show range), simply refused to allow Larson him to play anyone else. They could not distinguish between the performer and the performance. Perhaps Larson's name which was similar to Olsen confused them further.
What was also at play her was the old boy’s network. Larson was intimately involved with several big box office names, most notably James Dean and Montgomery Clift. Dean and Clift were protected by the studio system, alas, TV in it’s early days held no such clout or sway. Larson was deemed a risk, a liability. While Larson was not officially “out”, actually, few homosexuals were, point of fact, homosexuality was illegal, and considered a sickness, but Larson made no bones about it, and he wasn’t hiding in any closet. This too flew in the face of mainstream TV sponsors. In some capacities, Larson was liberated before the birth of the Gay Rights Movement. As opportunities for TV commercials, episodic TV, and the stage dwindled, Larson focused on becoming a librettist, playwright, producer, and screenwriter working with Virgil Thomson, John Houseman, Salka Viertel and Christopher Isherwood. Amongst his credits, Larson received the first grant ever awarded by the Rockefeller Foundation for his play, “The Candid House.”
Larson was the longtime companion of director James Bridges most notably “The China Syndrome” and “The Paper Chase”. They were together for over thirty-five years, until Bridges death in 1993.
Larson, as Jimmy Olsen has shown up in periodic cameos as the franchise has only grown in stature, and as new generations discover “The Man of Steel“. Larson was in the feature film “Superman Returns”, 2006 playing Bo, the bartender, albeit in a straight bar, sans his blue sweater.
Bo the Bartender: “Must be tough coming back“.
Clark Kent: “Coming back?”
Bo the Bartender: “To work.”
Indeed, it must have been.
