September 21, 2011. Copyright 2011, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Texan born actor Larry Hagman, best remembered as the scheming oil baron in TV's Dallas, turns 80
By Susan Shepherd

LONDON, September 21, Graphic News:  In the summer of 1980 there was only one question on everyone's lips: "Who shot J.R.?" The infamous big brother of the Ewing clan, Hagman's character had made enemies of just about everyone, except his mother, by the time the second season ended with one of TV's greatest cliffhangers. The question remained unanswered longer than had been expected, thanks to an actors' strike which delayed the start of the third series. But finally, on November 21st -- one of two dates Hagman says he'll never forget -- 350 million fans across 57 countries tuned in to find out. That episode remains the second highest rated in the history of television. Dallas ran for an unprecedented 13 seasons, with Hagman the only cast member to appear in all 357 episodes. He's due to reprise the role in a new, updated series, next year.
 
Thirteen years before the feuding family from Southfork became a fixture in the schedules, Hagman, the son of actress Mary Martin, had found success of a lighter-hearted nature in I Dream of Jeannie, a TV sitcom in which he played an American astronaut who finds himself living with a glamorous female genie he has unwittingly released from a bottle while on a pacific island. The series, co-starring Barbara Eden, ran for five years from September 1965, ending abruptly, as Hagman recalls: "Hollywood is a weird and wonderful place. I didn't know I Dream of Jeannie had been cancelled...until I went back to go on the lot to pick up some clothes and things I had in my dressing room."
 
Born in Fort Worth, Hagman was sent to live with his grandmother in California as a small boy, when his parents divorced, his mother pursuing her career on Broadway in his absence, and remarrying. As a young teenager at boarding school, Hagman began drinking heavily, a habit which was to continue throughout his adult life to the point where he needed a life-saving liver transplant in his sixties. Through drama classes he discovered a love of the stage and followed his mother into acting. When she transferred to London with the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific in 1951, Larry joined the company and performed alongside Martin -- the U.S. Navy Nurse Nellie Forbush, who washed her hair over a thousand times on stage -- in the chorus of sailors, or Seabees. The Korean war intervened the following year and Hagman was drafted for real, into the Air Force, but remained in London serving as part of special forces entertainment, producing shows for the troops -- a period he recalls as one of the happiest of his life.
 
Film credits either side of his long Dallas run include John Sturges's 1976 war drama, The Eagle Has Landed and Oliver Stone's Nixon in 1995, in which Hagman is once again a billionaire businessman. He won critical acclaim for his portrayal of Governor Picker in Primary Colors (1998), Mike Nichols' story of political infighting, based loosely on Bill Clinton's rise to power. Married for 57 years to Swedish designer Maj Axelsson -- he calls her "Superchick" - the couple have two children, three grandchildren and live in California, where they campaign vigorously on environmental issues.
/ENDS