Jack Olsen

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Jack Olsen
BornJohn Edward Olsen
(1925-06-07)June 7, 1925
Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.
DiedJuly 16, 2002(2002-07-16) (aged 77)
Bainbridge Island, Washington, U.S.
OccupationJournalist, writer
SubjectTrue crime, sports and games
Notable worksSon: A Psychopath and His Victims

Jack Olsen (June 7, 1925 – July 16, 2002) was an American journalist and author known for his crime reporting.

Olsen was senior editor-in-chief for the

Midwest bureau chief for Time and a senior editor for Sports Illustrated in 1961. He was also a regular contributor to other publications, including Fortune and Vanity Fair.[1]

Life and career

Olsen was born in

New York Times
 Notable Books of the Year. In a page-one review, the Times described his work as "a genuine contribution to criminology and journalism alike."

Books by Olsen have sold 33 million copies. Several of his books examined the intersection of law and politics during the late 1960s and the early 1970s. They include Last Man Standing: The Tragedy and Triumph of

All The President's Men, the book was one of several checked out of the White House library by E. Howard Hunt in the course of gathering information about Kennedy that could be used against him in the 1972 presidential campaign.[citation needed
]

Many of Olsen's most popular works investigated the life histories of violent career criminals. These include studies of serial rapists such as Kevin Coe (Son: A Psychopath and his Victims) and George Russell, (Charmer), as well as serial killers (The Misbegotten Son about Arthur Shawcross and Hastened to the Grave: The Gypsy Murder Investigation). Discussing his lifelong interest in crime journalism, Olsen described a field trip that his college criminology class took to a prison:

"I'm 19 years old and we get inside, and I see all these guys who look just like me," he said. "I thought that criminals looked different." Explaining what triggers his determination, he said, "I start every book with the idea that I want to explain how this 7 or 8 pounds of protoplasm went from his mommy's arms to become a serial rapist or serial killer. I think a crime book that doesn't do this is pure pornography."

— Jack Olsen, quoted in the New York Times, 1993

Olsen's work had social conscience. At Sports Illustrated in 1968, he shook the athletic establishment with a series about black athletes and the discrimination they faced in professional and college sports.

Olsen's journalism was recognized with the

Scripps-Howard
Award. He was described as "the dean of true crime authors" by The Washington Post. His crime studies remain on required reading lists in university criminology courses. In his obituary, The New York Times described his work as "a genuine contribution to criminology and journalism alike."

Olsen lived on Bainbridge Island, Washington, and died on July 16, 2002.

Books

Fiction

  • Alphabet Jackson (1974)
  • Massy's Game (1976)
  • The Secret of Fire 5 (1977)
  • Night Watch (1979)
  • Missing Persons (1981)
  • Have You Seen My Son? (1982)

Memoirs

  • Over the Fence is Out (1961)
  • The Pitcher's Kid (2002)

Nonfiction

  • The Climb up to Hell (1962)
  • Black is Best (1967)
  • Silence on Monte Sole (1968)
  • Night of the Grizzlies (1969)
  • Aphrodite: Desperate Mission (1969)
  • The Bridge at Chappaquiddick (1970)
  • The Man with the Candy: The Story of the Houston Mass Murders (1974)
  • Son: A Psychopath and his Victims (1983)
  • Give a Boy a Gun (1985)
  • Cold Kill (1987)
  • Doc: The Rape of the Town of Lovell (1989)
  • Predator: Rape, Madness, and Injustice in Seattle (1991)
  • The Misbegotten Son (1993)
  • Charmer (1994)
  • Salt of the Earth (1996)
  • Hasten to the Grave (1998)
  • I: The Creation of a Serial Killer (1998)
  • The Happy Face Killer (2008)

Games and sports

In 1967, Olsen released his authorized biography of Muhammad Ali, titled, Black is Best: The Riddle of Cassius Clay. From the book flap cover, Olsen, writes, "Cassius Clay is far more important as an American phenomenon of the 1960s than as a prizefighter. In his career as a boxer, he followed a traditional, even a stereotyped road to the top for a Negro, but his distortion of the American rags-to-riches story is peculiarly his own." Olsen spent a considerable amount of time around the boxer, subjecting him to several interviews over a two-year time period. Olsen also interviews family members, past training staff, doctors, promoters, and over twenty different sources who worked with Ali. Sports Illustrated called it "the best biography of a sports figure published to date".[2]
  • The Black Athlete: A Shameful Story; the myth of integration in American sports (Time-Life Books, 1968), 223 pp.
    OCLC 451880
  • LCCN 73-81706

History, politics, and sociology

Crime

References

  1. ^ Gootman, Elissa (July 22, 2002). "The New York Times, by Elissa Gootman, "Jack Olsen, 77, Whose Books Examined the Criminal Mind," July 22, 2002. Sec. A, p. 15". The New York Times. Retrieved February 14, 2012.
  2. ^ Werner, M.R. "Cassius-muhammad Is Portrayed With Penetration, Compassion And Wit". Sports Illustrated. March 13, 1967. Retrieved July 23, 2012.

External links

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