TV & VIDEO - July 7, 1987

Jeepers, chief! The actor who played Jimmy Olson, perhaps America’s best-known cub reporter, on the “Superman” TV series in the 1950s has donated the character’s trademark loud polka-dotted bow-tie to a Smithsonian Institution exhibit commemorating the Man of Steel’s 50th birthday. Jack Larson, now a 55-year-old producer, was 19 when he took the part in 1951 but was haunted by the role ever after, he said: “I couldn’t fight it. Even if I wrote a novel that won the Nobel Prize, my obituary would still probably say, ‘Best remembered as Jimmy Olson.’ ” The tie, ensconced in glass, is displayed next to Christopher Reeve’s costume from the “Superman” films of recent times; the exhibit, “Superman: Many Lives, Many Faces,” will run in Washington, D.C., through this year.