Jack Larson

And then...

the James Bridges and Jack Larson award for writing and directing.

Yep.

Um, you have books out young adult books.

And we've had a lot of great sponsors over the years that have come in and it is a great way to have a large audience on broadcast, see your film.

Jack Larson was the starter of it.

He was Jimmy Olsen on the Adventures of Superman way back in the 50s.

And he wanted to give students a space that they could get their work seen outside of the film festival circuit.

Written by Ben Peter Freeman and directed by Tommy Carr.

In the cast we had George Reeves as Superman, Clark Kent; Jack Larson as Jimmy Olsen; John Hamilton as Perry White; Jonathan Hale as Colonel Brand; Reese Williams as Macy Taylor; Cecile Elliot as Elsa; and Bill Kennedy as the announcer, although he's uncredited, but you're about to hear him, so here he is.

[upbeat music]

Faster than a speeding bullet.

But they'd show Jimmy, [laughs] Jimmy over there and Perry.

Yeah.

And, and, and, and, and oddly enough, and this is nothing against anything, or him, or anybody, but what's funny is, and they probably didn't know this, Jack Larson was gay.

[laughs]

So again, a place where Jimmy Olsen and Jimmy Olsen are together.

I think that is the only time that has happened beyond, uh, what's his name, Jack Larson appearing on, uh, in Superman Returns and on Lois & Clark.

Lois & Clark, yeah.

I think that's the only time that happened there.

Well, did we see Jimmy, or did we see a, uh, smaller human that was Jimmy shaped? Uh, 'cause I-

Yeah, possibly.

[laughs] That was Jack Larson.

Yeah.

Certainly, in the late 1940s and '50s, a time when the sexual liberation that Libby had enjoyed in the 1920s and early '30s had gone underground, there was little context for their romance, and it was not a sexless romance.

Here is a clip from Making Montgomery Clift, in which Monty's friend Jack Larson confirms as much.

They were having definitely a relationship.

Th- th- I'm talking about a sexual relationship under the sheets.

She was really, just in his eyes, I guess, a wealthy Californian art collector.

But it marked the beginning of this extraordinary 40-year friendship.

And the painting, which she went on to acquire, hung in her house for the next four decades or so.

And I feel it became very defining of her, as well as being a really landmark piece piece in Hockney's career.

But also just sort of the fact that she became such friends with the artists that she collected.

Like I've tried to become friends with some of the artists that we're you know, collecting.

And I have, you know, developed friendships with a lot of those artists.

So I think that's important to us as well, just the relationships, too.