Browse content similar to Larry Hagman - actor. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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the Liberal Democrats came eighth. Never more famous than when he was | :00:31. | :00:35. | |
short on screen, my guest was the central figure in the Dallas TV | :00:35. | :00:39. | |
series, the one everybody loved to hate. As JR, he became known | :00:39. | :00:44. | |
worldwide and could still draw a crowd at a bus stop. Like JR, he | :00:44. | :00:48. | |
was a tough negotiator when it came to contracts. What does it mean to | :00:48. | :00:52. | |
be a TV legend, and what did he say to Bill Clinton about all those | :00:52. | :00:57. | |
women? Larry Hagman, you look puzzled. | :00:57. | :01:01. | |
your last comment, I don't remember what I said. Did you not meet him | :01:01. | :01:07. | |
in a receiving line at one point? Yes. It was at the height of Monica | :01:07. | :01:11. | |
Lewinsky. Oh, yes. I was doing a film called Primary Colors and I | :01:11. | :01:15. | |
had just finished it. He had not seen it and I had a friend, Max | :01:15. | :01:20. | |
Cleland, a triple amputee from the Vietnam war. At that time, he was | :01:20. | :01:24. | |
the Junior Senator from Georgia and he said, let's go and meet Bill. | :01:24. | :01:29. | |
There was a line with 300 people. I said, we cannot stand in line. I | :01:29. | :01:33. | |
have a plane to catch. He said, they will not kick out a triple | :01:33. | :01:37. | |
amputee, we will go to the head of the line. We did. I had met him | :01:37. | :01:41. | |
once before and he said, hello, how are you doing. I said, I am doing | :01:41. | :01:47. | |
fine, how are you? He said, how do I come off in Primary Colors? I | :01:47. | :01:51. | |
said, you'll be pleased or stop this is handled well and he worries | :01:51. | :01:57. | |
sympathetic character. You did not tell him the truth. He said, what | :01:57. | :02:01. | |
do you think I ought to do right now? I said, get the hell out of | :02:01. | :02:05. | |
town. The next day, he went to Africa. He took my advice. I'm sure | :02:05. | :02:10. | |
he had planned it months before but he got out of town. Over the years, | :02:10. | :02:14. | |
you have loved the Fein, the adulation. What are the best | :02:14. | :02:20. | |
moments? What do you cherish? Walking down the street and having | :02:20. | :02:27. | |
people say, hello, JR. You actually watched every episode religiously. | :02:27. | :02:32. | |
Did you watch it critically? hopelessly. Sometimes they cut out | :02:32. | :02:42. | |
your best scenes. -- helplessly. Narcissistically? I like to see | :02:42. | :02:46. | |
what other people were doing. were never disappointed, were you? | :02:46. | :02:52. | |
On occasion, yes. You did not think you had risen to the occasion? | :02:52. | :02:56. | |
had words with them about cutting certain things out of scenes that I | :02:56. | :03:01. | |
liked. They finally came around to my view. You made them an offer | :03:01. | :03:07. | |
they could not refuse. I did. were tough on the set. You did not | :03:07. | :03:13. | |
do as you were told. You were difficult. Not at all. You were not | :03:13. | :03:18. | |
the character on screen at all? at all. I'm a pussycat. When I | :03:18. | :03:22. | |
thought something was best for the show, talk to the people who | :03:22. | :03:25. | |
handled that, producers and directors. I got on well with | :03:26. | :03:32. | |
everyone. And you never took it seriously. Only one year. The | :03:32. | :03:35. | |
producer I loved, and the guy was really responsible for the success | :03:35. | :03:40. | |
of the show, he left. He had friction with other guy he was | :03:40. | :03:45. | |
working under, another producer who took over and was a disaster. It | :03:45. | :03:49. | |
got down to me saying, it is me or him, and get the other guy back. So | :03:49. | :03:53. | |
they did. I could see it going down the tubes because of the taste of | :03:53. | :03:59. | |
the man. So I got rid of him, got my guide back and we lasted four | :03:59. | :04:05. | |
more years. You don't believe you quite made it. I made it to a | :04:05. | :04:08. | |
degree that I am quite happy with. Bigger than you ever thought | :04:08. | :04:14. | |
possible, wasn't it? Yes, about as big as you can do on television. | :04:14. | :04:18. | |
You can even claim some credit for getting rid of the Communists in | :04:18. | :04:22. | |
Eastern Europe. The final boot in the backside. I had a Russian | :04:22. | :04:28. | |
friend, a director from Russia, and he would bring big jugs of beluga | :04:28. | :04:35. | |
caviar. I would trade him for some VCR tape recorders and players. And | :04:36. | :04:40. | |
about 50 or 100 tapes of Dallas. He would take them back, clone them, | :04:40. | :04:44. | |
they would spread around his circle of friends and out from there in an | :04:44. | :04:48. | |
ever-widening circle. People would see that and they would say, | :04:48. | :04:51. | |
because they did not have information about the West, they | :04:51. | :04:54. | |
would see Dallas and see how we live, a little higher than most, of | :04:54. | :04:58. | |
course. It gave them an idea that they were missing out on what was | :04:58. | :05:03. | |
happening in other parts of the world. I think it had a real | :05:03. | :05:07. | |
influence on the taste and the information that the Soviet Union | :05:07. | :05:13. | |
got. Romania as well. I was walking down the street there one day. I | :05:13. | :05:16. | |
was their supposedly to help children with AIDS, which they have | :05:16. | :05:21. | |
a major problem with. A man came up with tears in his eyes and he said, | :05:21. | :05:26. | |
JR, you saved our country. Two or three other people did. Not Larry | :05:26. | :05:31. | |
Hagman, but JR. Apparently, Churchers School, the terrible | :05:31. | :05:36. | |
dictator over there for 20 years, had three television shows on the | :05:36. | :05:40. | |
air, two of political speeches and one of Dallas, to show how morally | :05:40. | :05:46. | |
corrupt America was. People saw that. -- Nicolae Churchers School. | :05:47. | :05:52. | |
They saw they were missing out on things and they took him out and | :05:52. | :05:57. | |
shot him. What about when they shot you? Give me a sense of how big | :05:57. | :06:04. | |
that was. I could not understand it. It was huge. Mary Crosby shot me, | :06:04. | :06:09. | |
Bing Crosby's daughter, by the way. She was playing the sister of Sue | :06:09. | :06:16. | |
Ellen, who while -- who I was having a fling with. You had 106 | :06:16. | :06:23. | |
flings. Did you count? Somebody counted. I wondered whether you had | :06:23. | :06:30. | |
forgotten how to do it for real. what for real? Oh, yes! Where were | :06:30. | :06:38. | |
we? 380 million people. Yes, it was phenomenal. I don't know why. That | :06:38. | :06:42. | |
year, we finished shooting the show, almost. We were doing so well that | :06:42. | :06:46. | |
CBS wanted to do four more to capitalise on it and they could not | :06:47. | :06:50. | |
come up with anything other than having the shot. They said, what | :06:50. | :06:56. | |
will we do after that? They did not figure it out, had no idea. And | :06:56. | :07:00. | |
then this phenomenon came along and the world picked up on it. It was | :07:00. | :07:07. | |
very unusual. And so, when they finally exposed who shot me it was | :07:07. | :07:10. | |
380 million people. I think that was a conservative estimate, | :07:10. | :07:14. | |
because many people in other parts of the world saw it, too. More | :07:14. | :07:17. | |
people than voted in the presidential election that year. | :07:18. | :07:25. | |
That is not unusual. It was issued to boost for the show, wasn't it? | :07:25. | :07:30. | |
Yes. And a huge boost for you personally. I was negotiating my | :07:31. | :07:35. | |
new contract. You decided to milk it. I came to London to get away | :07:35. | :07:38. | |
from Hollywood and away from people who said I would never work again. | :07:39. | :07:45. | |
I was pushing 50. You breached your contract. I told them I would not | :07:45. | :07:49. | |
work unless I got a raise. What did your mother think of that, Mary | :07:49. | :07:54. | |
Martin? I left the country because she would say, you must on your | :07:54. | :07:58. | |
contract. Contracts are all very well. They made money and I made | :07:58. | :08:06. | |
money, I wanted my share. Greedy? Of course. But you had everything | :08:06. | :08:11. | |
at that point, didn't you? I did not have a good salary. It was not | :08:11. | :08:20. | |
a bad one. I was making about 17,000 a week. $17,000 a week. Not | :08:20. | :08:25. | |
bad. Nowhere near what I was worth at the time. You decided to hold | :08:25. | :08:31. | |
out for how much? At the time, I think it was 150,000. I did not get | :08:31. | :08:36. | |
that but I got very close to that. And then it went up in increments. | :08:36. | :08:39. | |
They would Saini for three years and we would go past that. Finally, | :08:39. | :08:43. | |
I was making about a quarter of a million dollars per episode, which | :08:43. | :08:50. | |
is nothing now, but it was in those days. There are kids now making | :08:50. | :08:56. | |
$750,000 an episode. You blazed a trail. I did, and I should get a | :08:56. | :09:02. | |
piece of their action. Kelsey Grammer and Friends. Yes, where is | :09:02. | :09:07. | |
my piece. This was a high-risk tactic. I would never have worked | :09:07. | :09:12. | |
again if I did not pull it off. They could have just said, you have | :09:12. | :09:16. | |
been shot. Yes, and they did. They hired somebody to play my part. | :09:16. | :09:21. | |
They were shooting for 10 days before we reached a contract. I was | :09:21. | :09:25. | |
here in London, getting all the publicity, and it got back to them | :09:25. | :09:32. | |
back there. You were using the publicity. Your agent's idea? | :09:32. | :09:36. | |
my agents were too timid. Your agents never work for you, they | :09:36. | :09:41. | |
work for the main man. So make as much of a storm as you can, as much | :09:41. | :09:46. | |
publicity and put pressure on the studio. Yes. I had agents and | :09:46. | :09:50. | |
publicity people going in for these meetings and I bought them each a | :09:50. | :09:54. | |
white stetson. I said when you go in there, you wear a white stetson | :09:54. | :09:58. | |
and you will get what you want. enjoyed it, playing it close to the | :09:58. | :10:04. | |
line. It was a rush. This was your big moment. And if it had gone the | :10:04. | :10:09. | |
other way? I would have been just another actor out of work, which I | :10:09. | :10:16. | |
am now. Tell me how Dallas started in the late 1970s. Well, I was | :10:16. | :10:20. | |
going to see my mother and Ethel Merman, a great star in those days, | :10:20. | :10:28. | |
to do a benefit for the New York library. We had to go to this | :10:28. | :10:33. | |
studio and we got these two scripts, one a comedy - I had done I Dream | :10:33. | :10:39. | |
of Jeannie before which was a big success. They are doing re runs now. | :10:40. | :10:45. | |
Here, even, I think. It is all over the United States. I read a comedy | :10:45. | :10:50. | |
script, thinking that was what they had me in mind for. My wife went to | :10:50. | :10:55. | |
her bedroom and was reading Dallas. I heard, Larry, this is it, come | :10:55. | :11:00. | |
and read this. I went inside and everybody was a bad character. They | :11:00. | :11:06. | |
were all dreadful people. Bobby, Victoria, everyone. I said, this is | :11:06. | :11:12. | |
my kind of show. It filters down over the six weeks, the six | :11:12. | :11:16. | |
episodes we did to begin with, to me being the bad character. And you | :11:16. | :11:21. | |
were running the show. The show was JR. Well, it was, but it was a | :11:21. | :11:25. | |
communal effort. Without the other characters, it would not have meant | :11:25. | :11:30. | |
anything. I did not do much. They would build it up to say, what will | :11:30. | :11:35. | |
JR think, he will be angry. Instead of being angry, I would be smiling | :11:35. | :11:41. | |
and that put the fear of God into them. He brought in some champagne. | :11:41. | :11:44. | |
On the first day, brought in a case of cold, chilled champagne and | :11:44. | :11:48. | |
opened it at the Reading, to the consternation of the producers. It | :11:48. | :11:55. | |
broke the ice and got us friendly. Lifelong friendships emerged. | :11:55. | :11:59. | |
Gray is a great friend. Linda Gray is in The Graduate in London at the | :11:59. | :12:06. | |
moment. What was it like? Were the cast as nice as you said? You do | :12:06. | :12:10. | |
not use your book to settle scores, like some. This is not a kiss-and- | :12:10. | :12:16. | |
tell book. No, and also, I do not have a lot to tell. We got along | :12:16. | :12:22. | |
wonderfully. Everybody on the show was a great family, for 13 years. | :12:22. | :12:25. | |
Patrick dropped out for a year because he wanted his career to go | :12:25. | :12:29. | |
in another direction. I said, don't do that. People do not trust you | :12:29. | :12:33. | |
when you leave a successful show like this. They think you are nuts. | :12:33. | :12:38. | |
Sure enough, after another year, we got him back. It led to the most | :12:39. | :12:43. | |
unlikely reappearance ever. Right. When he left and was coming back, | :12:43. | :12:47. | |
we could not figure out how to get him back. That was the year that my | :12:47. | :12:51. | |
producer left and another to go over and I was very unhappy. So we | :12:51. | :12:56. | |
made it a dream that did not happen. Well, we lost a lot of viewers but | :12:56. | :13:06. | |
:13:06. | :13:11. | ||
we had enough to maintain for It was fine. Wonderful. Everybody | :13:11. | :13:15. | |
got raises after that. It wasn't just me. Everybody did. A piece of | :13:15. | :13:20. | |
the pie. A big piece of the pie. Everybody was happy, I think. They | :13:20. | :13:23. | |
are still friends, we go hunting and fishing together. | :13:24. | :13:26. | |
You didn't approve of the smoking, did you? Barbara Bel Geddes, you | :13:26. | :13:33. | |
followed her around. She smoked a couple packs a day. I objected to | :13:33. | :13:40. | |
it, of course. I said, a lot of people in here don't smoke, so she | :13:40. | :13:47. | |
would have her own make-up person and go to her own dressing room. | :13:47. | :13:51. | |
She didn't like that very much, but then she had a massive heart attack | :13:51. | :13:58. | |
and almost died. Now she can't stand anyone smoking around her. | :13:58. | :14:02. | |
You hated smoking, but you were drinking a lot. Yes, but it wasn't | :14:02. | :14:12. | |
:14:12. | :14:13. | ||
affecting anybody. Five bottles of champagne a day? Why? I don't know. | :14:13. | :14:16. | |
You get on a level, you just kind of keep that level. Not drunk | :14:16. | :14:22. | |
obstreperous or angry. You were an amiable drunk? Yes. I was fun. I | :14:22. | :14:29. | |
enjoyed it. But I destroyed my liver. You were bored, weren't you? | :14:29. | :14:33. | |
It was so easy for me, maybe the drink made it more difficult, more | :14:33. | :14:39. | |
of a challenge. The character was easy? Yes, once I had my character, | :14:39. | :14:45. | |
I didn't have to do anything. They wrote it and I did it. I think | :14:45. | :14:49. | |
perhaps on reflection, it was so easy that I wanted it to be more | :14:49. | :14:54. | |
difficult so I drank to make it more of a challenge. I think. | :14:54. | :14:57. | |
you could be a drunk, you could take drugs, but there was one rule | :14:57. | :15:04. | |
that you couldn't break on set. Never be late. Ever. And hang your | :15:04. | :15:07. | |
own clothes up. Yes. That's what Mother said. Never be late. Know | :15:07. | :15:17. | |
your lines, hang your clothes up. Try and be reasonably sober. | :15:17. | :15:20. | |
last one... I didn't do that one very well. You have been married | :15:20. | :15:26. | |
for 47 years. Almost a record in the entertainment...? Yes, up there | :15:26. | :15:29. | |
with Jimmy Stewart and people like that. How did your wife cope with | :15:29. | :15:36. | |
all of it? I was not abusive. She floated along with me, I guess. | :15:36. | :15:39. | |
Champagne during the day and vodka during the night. She's a | :15:39. | :15:45. | |
workaholic. When she's got time on her hands, she designs clothes, or | :15:45. | :15:54. | |
builds a house. She's tough? She lays down rules. Yes, I suppose so. | :15:54. | :16:03. | |
I do what she tells me. That's why we've been married 47 years. | :16:03. | :16:07. | |
she travels with you? Yes, everywhere. Tell me about the time | :16:07. | :16:10. | |
you met the Queen Mother. You went to the 80th gala command | :16:10. | :16:13. | |
performance. Yes. The greatest performance of your life? It was | :16:13. | :16:19. | |
the most interesting performance of my life. I had done a song. A | :16:19. | :16:25. | |
single. And to promote it, I came over to be in the Palladium with | :16:25. | :16:35. | |
Mother. They asked me to do the single. I had read the lyrics and | :16:35. | :16:39. | |
recorded it. They introduced me and I came on. # Oom-Pah-Pah... | :16:39. | :16:46. | |
# I got halfway through and all of the lines just went out of my head. | :16:46. | :16:49. | |
I turned to the conductor who was one of the most pre-eminent | :16:49. | :16:54. | |
conductors in the world and I said, can we start over again? I don't | :16:54. | :17:01. | |
know. We have to tell everybody in the chorus as well. Everybody is | :17:02. | :17:06. | |
out of the audience going what is the matter with that guy? So we | :17:06. | :17:10. | |
started again. I started singing again, sure enough, got to the same | :17:10. | :17:16. | |
place and it was gone. I turned to the Queen Mother in the box and I | :17:16. | :17:19. | |
said, I'm sorry, ma'am, but if you're going to blow it, blow it | :17:19. | :17:22. | |
big. That got a laugh. Without further ado, I'm going to introduce | :17:22. | :17:26. | |
my mother, Peter Pan. And she came on, did a couple of numbers, and we | :17:26. | :17:30. | |
did a duet. It was kind of exhilarating, really. I wasn't | :17:30. | :17:38. | |
nervous, I was just, like, having fun. You talked about that that in | :17:38. | :17:42. | |
the receiving line afterwards with Prince Charles? I met the Queen | :17:42. | :17:50. | |
Mother and she said I don't suppose so I said, not even you. Lauren | :17:50. | :17:59. | |
Bacall, you were working on a TV movie with her. I was told that | :17:59. | :18:03. | |
Lauren did not like people to touch her. And there were scenes where I | :18:03. | :18:08. | |
would have to kiss her. Well, you don't touch her. I said, what does | :18:08. | :18:18. | |
that mean? Make it look like you're kissing her. I had never worked | :18:18. | :18:21. | |
with her before and I worked for two weeks with the understudy being | :18:22. | :18:25. | |
warned all the time. I finally came to meet her and she was grandly | :18:25. | :18:28. | |
sitting, she's a wonderful woman. She was sitting in her dressing | :18:28. | :18:36. | |
room. She offered me her hand. And it just came over me and I licked | :18:36. | :18:40. | |
her hand and wrist right up to her elbow. Just ran my tongue up her | :18:40. | :18:46. | |
arm. It was just the most disgusting thing. And she was just | :18:46. | :18:50. | |
looking at me like that. I don't know why I did it. That is the most | :18:50. | :18:52. | |
extraordinary thing. I was embarrassed when I was doing it, | :18:52. | :18:57. | |
but I couldn't stop. She dismissed me and finally we did the show. | :18:57. | :19:01. | |
must have been shocked. She did not know what to do. Was anybody else | :19:01. | :19:11. | |
:19:11. | :19:12. | ||
there? No, luckily, just she and I. never did it to anybody else? I got | :19:12. | :19:18. | |
it out of my system. You knew several years before Dallas finally | :19:18. | :19:26. | |
ended that it was on the way out. Was it tough? Well, we have ouir | :19:26. | :19:36. | |
:19:36. | :19:39. | ||
peaks and valleys in life. I knew it was inevitable. I wanted to keep | :19:40. | :19:43. | |
it going because I knew I'd be typecast as that character for the | :19:43. | :19:46. | |
rest of my life. You wanted to be typecast? I was typecast. You don't | :19:46. | :19:49. | |
want to keep that when you are looking for other work. But I | :19:50. | :19:53. | |
stored up enough... Cash? Cash to ride out the rest of my storm. | :19:53. | :19:56. | |
it ended, did the phones start ringing? Did you get a lot of | :19:56. | :20:01. | |
offers? I got offers to play bad guys. You were in Dallas, smoking a | :20:01. | :20:06. | |
cigar with your feet on the table. Wait, I never smoked anything. We | :20:06. | :20:11. | |
didn't allow smoking on the set. Yes, you smoked cigars. I did not. | :20:11. | :20:14. | |
They equate bad guys with cigar smoking. So I turned down those | :20:14. | :20:24. | |
:20:24. | :20:24. | ||
jobs. If it was an interesting bad guy, I would do it. But I didn't | :20:24. | :20:27. | |
find anything interesting. So far. A year later, you mentioned a | :20:27. | :20:33. | |
little while ago, cirrhosis of the liver. A few years later. Out of | :20:33. | :20:42. | |
the blue? You were drinking at such a rate, you must have known? I said | :20:42. | :20:46. | |
if the doctors tell me to stop drinking, I would stop. The doctors | :20:46. | :20:53. | |
did tell me to stop. I was working out with my workout lady. Every day, | :20:53. | :20:57. | |
I would do an hour. She said, you don't have the energy you used to | :20:57. | :21:02. | |
have. I went to see the doctor and he did a lot of blood tests. He | :21:02. | :21:06. | |
called me when I was home, having a vodka and orange and he said, are | :21:06. | :21:12. | |
you drinking? I said, yes. He said, I suggest you pour it down the | :21:12. | :21:16. | |
drain. You have chronic cirrhosis of the liver and your next drink | :21:16. | :21:25. | |
could kill you. I said, you are kidding?! He said, no, it's true. | :21:25. | :21:29. | |
So I did, I poured it down the drain and I never had another drink. | :21:29. | :21:32. | |
Never from that day on? No, but I didn't have any withdrawal or | :21:32. | :21:35. | |
anything like that. It was very lucky. I just said, I'm not going | :21:35. | :21:39. | |
to do this any more, so I didn't. You got a transplant. I got a | :21:39. | :21:42. | |
transplant. That was two and a half years before my transplant and I | :21:42. | :21:46. | |
thought stopping might save it, but I'd done so much damage to my liver | :21:46. | :21:54. | |
that it was irreperable. Scared you. No. Why not? I'm not scared of | :21:55. | :21:58. | |
death, I'm scared of pain and there was no pain connected with it so I | :21:58. | :22:00. | |
just floated off into encephalopathy, in your brain, | :22:00. | :22:08. | |
things don't meet so it was getting harder to remember... I wasn't | :22:08. | :22:12. | |
working at that time, so I didn't have any lines to learn. But it was | :22:12. | :22:17. | |
hard to put things together. So I didn't mind. And they recommended a | :22:17. | :22:20. | |
liver transplant and I said, no, I'm 65, I've had a wonderful life | :22:20. | :22:27. | |
and I'd rather not, I don't want to be a cripple. And they said, you | :22:27. | :22:34. | |
won't be a cripple, you can live a normal life. They introduced me to | :22:34. | :22:37. | |
a guy called Dallas Taylor, the drummer for Crosby Stills and Nash, | :22:37. | :22:40. | |
and he had ruined his liver with all kinds of things and had a | :22:40. | :22:44. | |
successful transplant and came to talk to me. He introduced me to a | :22:44. | :22:47. | |
12 step program, which I still go through, and got me involved in | :22:47. | :22:55. | |
searching for another way of facing life. And it worked. It worked, a | :22:56. | :23:00. | |
new lease of life? I had my transplant and I felt wonderful | :23:00. | :23:08. | |
immediately afterwards. I remember a girl, her phone number from when | :23:09. | :23:15. | |
I was 16 years old. All these things were coming to mind. Do you | :23:15. | :23:21. | |
look forward or back in life? Forward now. This is the cream on | :23:21. | :23:26. | |
the top. It's all wonderful. I look backwards in my book and that's as | :23:27. | :23:31. | |
far I want to go. Good to have got it off your chest? I think so, yeah. | :23:31. | :23:35. | |
I'd never write another book. That's for sure. Would you do | :23:35. | :23:41. | |
Dallas again? I'd do a reunion again. The bloom is off the rose | :23:41. | :23:44. |