:00:31. > :00:35.the Liberal Democrats came eighth. Never more famous than when he was
:00:35. > :00:39.short on screen, my guest was the central figure in the Dallas TV
:00:39. > :00:44.series, the one everybody loved to hate. As JR, he became known
:00:44. > :00:48.worldwide and could still draw a crowd at a bus stop. Like JR, he
:00:48. > :00:52.was a tough negotiator when it came to contracts. What does it mean to
:00:52. > :00:57.be a TV legend, and what did he say to Bill Clinton about all those
:00:57. > :01:01.women? Larry Hagman, you look puzzled.
:01:01. > :01:07.your last comment, I don't remember what I said. Did you not meet him
:01:07. > :01:11.in a receiving line at one point? Yes. It was at the height of Monica
:01:11. > :01:15.Lewinsky. Oh, yes. I was doing a film called Primary Colors and I
:01:15. > :01:20.had just finished it. He had not seen it and I had a friend, Max
:01:20. > :01:24.Cleland, a triple amputee from the Vietnam war. At that time, he was
:01:24. > :01:29.the Junior Senator from Georgia and he said, let's go and meet Bill.
:01:29. > :01:33.There was a line with 300 people. I said, we cannot stand in line. I
:01:33. > :01:37.have a plane to catch. He said, they will not kick out a triple
:01:37. > :01:41.amputee, we will go to the head of the line. We did. I had met him
:01:41. > :01:47.once before and he said, hello, how are you doing. I said, I am doing
:01:47. > :01:51.fine, how are you? He said, how do I come off in Primary Colors? I
:01:51. > :01:57.said, you'll be pleased or stop this is handled well and he worries
:01:57. > :02:01.sympathetic character. You did not tell him the truth. He said, what
:02:01. > :02:05.do you think I ought to do right now? I said, get the hell out of
:02:05. > :02:10.town. The next day, he went to Africa. He took my advice. I'm sure
:02:10. > :02:14.he had planned it months before but he got out of town. Over the years,
:02:14. > :02:20.you have loved the Fein, the adulation. What are the best
:02:20. > :02:27.moments? What do you cherish? Walking down the street and having
:02:27. > :02:32.people say, hello, JR. You actually watched every episode religiously.
:02:32. > :02:42.Did you watch it critically? hopelessly. Sometimes they cut out
:02:42. > :02:46.your best scenes. -- helplessly. Narcissistically? I like to see
:02:46. > :02:52.what other people were doing. were never disappointed, were you?
:02:52. > :02:56.On occasion, yes. You did not think you had risen to the occasion?
:02:56. > :03:01.had words with them about cutting certain things out of scenes that I
:03:01. > :03:07.liked. They finally came around to my view. You made them an offer
:03:07. > :03:13.they could not refuse. I did. were tough on the set. You did not
:03:13. > :03:18.do as you were told. You were difficult. Not at all. You were not
:03:18. > :03:22.the character on screen at all? at all. I'm a pussycat. When I
:03:22. > :03:25.thought something was best for the show, talk to the people who
:03:26. > :03:32.handled that, producers and directors. I got on well with
:03:32. > :03:35.everyone. And you never took it seriously. Only one year. The
:03:35. > :03:40.producer I loved, and the guy was really responsible for the success
:03:40. > :03:45.of the show, he left. He had friction with other guy he was
:03:45. > :03:49.working under, another producer who took over and was a disaster. It
:03:49. > :03:53.got down to me saying, it is me or him, and get the other guy back. So
:03:53. > :03:59.they did. I could see it going down the tubes because of the taste of
:03:59. > :04:05.the man. So I got rid of him, got my guide back and we lasted four
:04:05. > :04:08.more years. You don't believe you quite made it. I made it to a
:04:08. > :04:14.degree that I am quite happy with. Bigger than you ever thought
:04:14. > :04:18.possible, wasn't it? Yes, about as big as you can do on television.
:04:18. > :04:22.You can even claim some credit for getting rid of the Communists in
:04:22. > :04:28.Eastern Europe. The final boot in the backside. I had a Russian
:04:28. > :04:35.friend, a director from Russia, and he would bring big jugs of beluga
:04:36. > :04:40.caviar. I would trade him for some VCR tape recorders and players. And
:04:40. > :04:44.about 50 or 100 tapes of Dallas. He would take them back, clone them,
:04:44. > :04:48.they would spread around his circle of friends and out from there in an
:04:48. > :04:51.ever-widening circle. People would see that and they would say,
:04:51. > :04:54.because they did not have information about the West, they
:04:54. > :04:58.would see Dallas and see how we live, a little higher than most, of
:04:58. > :05:03.course. It gave them an idea that they were missing out on what was
:05:03. > :05:07.happening in other parts of the world. I think it had a real
:05:07. > :05:13.influence on the taste and the information that the Soviet Union
:05:13. > :05:16.got. Romania as well. I was walking down the street there one day. I
:05:16. > :05:21.was their supposedly to help children with AIDS, which they have
:05:21. > :05:26.a major problem with. A man came up with tears in his eyes and he said,
:05:26. > :05:31.JR, you saved our country. Two or three other people did. Not Larry
:05:31. > :05:36.Hagman, but JR. Apparently, Churchers School, the terrible
:05:36. > :05:40.dictator over there for 20 years, had three television shows on the
:05:40. > :05:46.air, two of political speeches and one of Dallas, to show how morally
:05:47. > :05:52.corrupt America was. People saw that. -- Nicolae Churchers School.
:05:52. > :05:57.They saw they were missing out on things and they took him out and
:05:57. > :06:04.shot him. What about when they shot you? Give me a sense of how big
:06:04. > :06:09.that was. I could not understand it. It was huge. Mary Crosby shot me,
:06:09. > :06:16.Bing Crosby's daughter, by the way. She was playing the sister of Sue
:06:16. > :06:23.Ellen, who while -- who I was having a fling with. You had 106
:06:23. > :06:30.flings. Did you count? Somebody counted. I wondered whether you had
:06:30. > :06:38.forgotten how to do it for real. what for real? Oh, yes! Where were
:06:38. > :06:42.we? 380 million people. Yes, it was phenomenal. I don't know why. That
:06:42. > :06:46.year, we finished shooting the show, almost. We were doing so well that
:06:47. > :06:50.CBS wanted to do four more to capitalise on it and they could not
:06:50. > :06:56.come up with anything other than having the shot. They said, what
:06:56. > :07:00.will we do after that? They did not figure it out, had no idea. And
:07:00. > :07:07.then this phenomenon came along and the world picked up on it. It was
:07:07. > :07:10.very unusual. And so, when they finally exposed who shot me it was
:07:10. > :07:14.380 million people. I think that was a conservative estimate,
:07:14. > :07:17.because many people in other parts of the world saw it, too. More
:07:18. > :07:25.people than voted in the presidential election that year.
:07:25. > :07:30.That is not unusual. It was issued to boost for the show, wasn't it?
:07:31. > :07:35.Yes. And a huge boost for you personally. I was negotiating my
:07:35. > :07:38.new contract. You decided to milk it. I came to London to get away
:07:39. > :07:45.from Hollywood and away from people who said I would never work again.
:07:45. > :07:49.I was pushing 50. You breached your contract. I told them I would not
:07:49. > :07:54.work unless I got a raise. What did your mother think of that, Mary
:07:54. > :07:58.Martin? I left the country because she would say, you must on your
:07:58. > :08:06.contract. Contracts are all very well. They made money and I made
:08:06. > :08:11.money, I wanted my share. Greedy? Of course. But you had everything
:08:11. > :08:20.at that point, didn't you? I did not have a good salary. It was not
:08:20. > :08:25.a bad one. I was making about 17,000 a week. $17,000 a week. Not
:08:25. > :08:31.bad. Nowhere near what I was worth at the time. You decided to hold
:08:31. > :08:36.out for how much? At the time, I think it was 150,000. I did not get
:08:36. > :08:39.that but I got very close to that. And then it went up in increments.
:08:39. > :08:43.They would Saini for three years and we would go past that. Finally,
:08:43. > :08:50.I was making about a quarter of a million dollars per episode, which
:08:50. > :08:56.is nothing now, but it was in those days. There are kids now making
:08:56. > :09:02.$750,000 an episode. You blazed a trail. I did, and I should get a
:09:02. > :09:07.piece of their action. Kelsey Grammer and Friends. Yes, where is
:09:07. > :09:12.my piece. This was a high-risk tactic. I would never have worked
:09:12. > :09:16.again if I did not pull it off. They could have just said, you have
:09:16. > :09:21.been shot. Yes, and they did. They hired somebody to play my part.
:09:21. > :09:25.They were shooting for 10 days before we reached a contract. I was
:09:25. > :09:32.here in London, getting all the publicity, and it got back to them
:09:32. > :09:36.back there. You were using the publicity. Your agent's idea?
:09:36. > :09:41.my agents were too timid. Your agents never work for you, they
:09:41. > :09:46.work for the main man. So make as much of a storm as you can, as much
:09:46. > :09:50.publicity and put pressure on the studio. Yes. I had agents and
:09:50. > :09:54.publicity people going in for these meetings and I bought them each a
:09:54. > :09:58.white stetson. I said when you go in there, you wear a white stetson
:09:58. > :10:04.and you will get what you want. enjoyed it, playing it close to the
:10:04. > :10:09.line. It was a rush. This was your big moment. And if it had gone the
:10:09. > :10:16.other way? I would have been just another actor out of work, which I
:10:16. > :10:20.am now. Tell me how Dallas started in the late 1970s. Well, I was
:10:20. > :10:28.going to see my mother and Ethel Merman, a great star in those days,
:10:28. > :10:33.to do a benefit for the New York library. We had to go to this
:10:33. > :10:39.studio and we got these two scripts, one a comedy - I had done I Dream
:10:40. > :10:45.of Jeannie before which was a big success. They are doing re runs now.
:10:45. > :10:50.Here, even, I think. It is all over the United States. I read a comedy
:10:50. > :10:55.script, thinking that was what they had me in mind for. My wife went to
:10:55. > :11:00.her bedroom and was reading Dallas. I heard, Larry, this is it, come
:11:00. > :11:06.and read this. I went inside and everybody was a bad character. They
:11:06. > :11:12.were all dreadful people. Bobby, Victoria, everyone. I said, this is
:11:12. > :11:16.my kind of show. It filters down over the six weeks, the six
:11:16. > :11:21.episodes we did to begin with, to me being the bad character. And you
:11:21. > :11:25.were running the show. The show was JR. Well, it was, but it was a
:11:25. > :11:30.communal effort. Without the other characters, it would not have meant
:11:30. > :11:35.anything. I did not do much. They would build it up to say, what will
:11:35. > :11:41.JR think, he will be angry. Instead of being angry, I would be smiling
:11:41. > :11:44.and that put the fear of God into them. He brought in some champagne.
:11:44. > :11:48.On the first day, brought in a case of cold, chilled champagne and
:11:48. > :11:55.opened it at the Reading, to the consternation of the producers. It
:11:55. > :11:59.broke the ice and got us friendly. Lifelong friendships emerged.
:11:59. > :12:06.Gray is a great friend. Linda Gray is in The Graduate in London at the
:12:06. > :12:10.moment. What was it like? Were the cast as nice as you said? You do
:12:10. > :12:16.not use your book to settle scores, like some. This is not a kiss-and-
:12:16. > :12:22.tell book. No, and also, I do not have a lot to tell. We got along
:12:22. > :12:25.wonderfully. Everybody on the show was a great family, for 13 years.
:12:25. > :12:29.Patrick dropped out for a year because he wanted his career to go
:12:29. > :12:33.in another direction. I said, don't do that. People do not trust you
:12:33. > :12:38.when you leave a successful show like this. They think you are nuts.
:12:39. > :12:43.Sure enough, after another year, we got him back. It led to the most
:12:43. > :12:47.unlikely reappearance ever. Right. When he left and was coming back,
:12:47. > :12:51.we could not figure out how to get him back. That was the year that my
:12:51. > :12:56.producer left and another to go over and I was very unhappy. So we
:12:56. > :13:06.made it a dream that did not happen. Well, we lost a lot of viewers but
:13:06. > :13:11.
:13:11. > :13:15.we had enough to maintain for It was fine. Wonderful. Everybody
:13:15. > :13:20.got raises after that. It wasn't just me. Everybody did. A piece of
:13:20. > :13:23.the pie. A big piece of the pie. Everybody was happy, I think. They
:13:24. > :13:26.are still friends, we go hunting and fishing together.
:13:26. > :13:33.You didn't approve of the smoking, did you? Barbara Bel Geddes, you
:13:33. > :13:40.followed her around. She smoked a couple packs a day. I objected to
:13:40. > :13:47.it, of course. I said, a lot of people in here don't smoke, so she
:13:47. > :13:51.would have her own make-up person and go to her own dressing room.
:13:51. > :13:58.She didn't like that very much, but then she had a massive heart attack
:13:58. > :14:02.and almost died. Now she can't stand anyone smoking around her.
:14:02. > :14:12.You hated smoking, but you were drinking a lot. Yes, but it wasn't
:14:12. > :14:13.
:14:13. > :14:16.affecting anybody. Five bottles of champagne a day? Why? I don't know.
:14:16. > :14:22.You get on a level, you just kind of keep that level. Not drunk
:14:22. > :14:29.obstreperous or angry. You were an amiable drunk? Yes. I was fun. I
:14:29. > :14:33.enjoyed it. But I destroyed my liver. You were bored, weren't you?
:14:33. > :14:39.It was so easy for me, maybe the drink made it more difficult, more
:14:39. > :14:45.of a challenge. The character was easy? Yes, once I had my character,
:14:45. > :14:49.I didn't have to do anything. They wrote it and I did it. I think
:14:49. > :14:54.perhaps on reflection, it was so easy that I wanted it to be more
:14:54. > :14:57.difficult so I drank to make it more of a challenge. I think.
:14:57. > :15:04.you could be a drunk, you could take drugs, but there was one rule
:15:04. > :15:07.that you couldn't break on set. Never be late. Ever. And hang your
:15:07. > :15:17.own clothes up. Yes. That's what Mother said. Never be late. Know
:15:17. > :15:20.your lines, hang your clothes up. Try and be reasonably sober.
:15:20. > :15:26.last one... I didn't do that one very well. You have been married
:15:26. > :15:29.for 47 years. Almost a record in the entertainment...? Yes, up there
:15:29. > :15:36.with Jimmy Stewart and people like that. How did your wife cope with
:15:36. > :15:39.all of it? I was not abusive. She floated along with me, I guess.
:15:39. > :15:45.Champagne during the day and vodka during the night. She's a
:15:45. > :15:54.workaholic. When she's got time on her hands, she designs clothes, or
:15:54. > :16:03.builds a house. She's tough? She lays down rules. Yes, I suppose so.
:16:03. > :16:07.I do what she tells me. That's why we've been married 47 years.
:16:07. > :16:10.she travels with you? Yes, everywhere. Tell me about the time
:16:10. > :16:13.you met the Queen Mother. You went to the 80th gala command
:16:13. > :16:19.performance. Yes. The greatest performance of your life? It was
:16:19. > :16:25.the most interesting performance of my life. I had done a song. A
:16:25. > :16:35.single. And to promote it, I came over to be in the Palladium with
:16:35. > :16:39.Mother. They asked me to do the single. I had read the lyrics and
:16:39. > :16:46.recorded it. They introduced me and I came on. # Oom-Pah-Pah...
:16:46. > :16:49.# I got halfway through and all of the lines just went out of my head.
:16:49. > :16:54.I turned to the conductor who was one of the most pre-eminent
:16:54. > :17:01.conductors in the world and I said, can we start over again? I don't
:17:02. > :17:06.know. We have to tell everybody in the chorus as well. Everybody is
:17:06. > :17:10.out of the audience going what is the matter with that guy? So we
:17:10. > :17:16.started again. I started singing again, sure enough, got to the same
:17:16. > :17:19.place and it was gone. I turned to the Queen Mother in the box and I
:17:19. > :17:22.said, I'm sorry, ma'am, but if you're going to blow it, blow it
:17:22. > :17:26.big. That got a laugh. Without further ado, I'm going to introduce
:17:26. > :17:30.my mother, Peter Pan. And she came on, did a couple of numbers, and we
:17:30. > :17:38.did a duet. It was kind of exhilarating, really. I wasn't
:17:38. > :17:42.nervous, I was just, like, having fun. You talked about that that in
:17:42. > :17:50.the receiving line afterwards with Prince Charles? I met the Queen
:17:50. > :17:59.Mother and she said I don't suppose so I said, not even you. Lauren
:17:59. > :18:03.Bacall, you were working on a TV movie with her. I was told that
:18:03. > :18:08.Lauren did not like people to touch her. And there were scenes where I
:18:08. > :18:18.would have to kiss her. Well, you don't touch her. I said, what does
:18:18. > :18:21.that mean? Make it look like you're kissing her. I had never worked
:18:22. > :18:25.with her before and I worked for two weeks with the understudy being
:18:25. > :18:28.warned all the time. I finally came to meet her and she was grandly
:18:28. > :18:36.sitting, she's a wonderful woman. She was sitting in her dressing
:18:36. > :18:40.room. She offered me her hand. And it just came over me and I licked
:18:40. > :18:46.her hand and wrist right up to her elbow. Just ran my tongue up her
:18:46. > :18:50.arm. It was just the most disgusting thing. And she was just
:18:50. > :18:52.looking at me like that. I don't know why I did it. That is the most
:18:52. > :18:57.extraordinary thing. I was embarrassed when I was doing it,
:18:57. > :19:01.but I couldn't stop. She dismissed me and finally we did the show.
:19:01. > :19:11.must have been shocked. She did not know what to do. Was anybody else
:19:11. > :19:12.
:19:12. > :19:18.there? No, luckily, just she and I. never did it to anybody else? I got
:19:18. > :19:26.it out of my system. You knew several years before Dallas finally
:19:26. > :19:36.ended that it was on the way out. Was it tough? Well, we have ouir
:19:36. > :19:39.
:19:40. > :19:43.peaks and valleys in life. I knew it was inevitable. I wanted to keep
:19:43. > :19:46.it going because I knew I'd be typecast as that character for the
:19:46. > :19:49.rest of my life. You wanted to be typecast? I was typecast. You don't
:19:50. > :19:53.want to keep that when you are looking for other work. But I
:19:53. > :19:56.stored up enough... Cash? Cash to ride out the rest of my storm.
:19:56. > :20:01.it ended, did the phones start ringing? Did you get a lot of
:20:01. > :20:06.offers? I got offers to play bad guys. You were in Dallas, smoking a
:20:06. > :20:11.cigar with your feet on the table. Wait, I never smoked anything. We
:20:11. > :20:14.didn't allow smoking on the set. Yes, you smoked cigars. I did not.
:20:14. > :20:24.They equate bad guys with cigar smoking. So I turned down those
:20:24. > :20:24.
:20:24. > :20:27.jobs. If it was an interesting bad guy, I would do it. But I didn't
:20:27. > :20:33.find anything interesting. So far. A year later, you mentioned a
:20:33. > :20:42.little while ago, cirrhosis of the liver. A few years later. Out of
:20:42. > :20:46.the blue? You were drinking at such a rate, you must have known? I said
:20:46. > :20:53.if the doctors tell me to stop drinking, I would stop. The doctors
:20:53. > :20:57.did tell me to stop. I was working out with my workout lady. Every day,
:20:57. > :21:02.I would do an hour. She said, you don't have the energy you used to
:21:02. > :21:06.have. I went to see the doctor and he did a lot of blood tests. He
:21:06. > :21:12.called me when I was home, having a vodka and orange and he said, are
:21:12. > :21:16.you drinking? I said, yes. He said, I suggest you pour it down the
:21:16. > :21:25.drain. You have chronic cirrhosis of the liver and your next drink
:21:25. > :21:29.could kill you. I said, you are kidding?! He said, no, it's true.
:21:29. > :21:32.So I did, I poured it down the drain and I never had another drink.
:21:32. > :21:35.Never from that day on? No, but I didn't have any withdrawal or
:21:35. > :21:39.anything like that. It was very lucky. I just said, I'm not going
:21:39. > :21:42.to do this any more, so I didn't. You got a transplant. I got a
:21:42. > :21:46.transplant. That was two and a half years before my transplant and I
:21:46. > :21:54.thought stopping might save it, but I'd done so much damage to my liver
:21:55. > :21:58.that it was irreperable. Scared you. No. Why not? I'm not scared of
:21:58. > :22:00.death, I'm scared of pain and there was no pain connected with it so I
:22:00. > :22:08.just floated off into encephalopathy, in your brain,
:22:08. > :22:12.things don't meet so it was getting harder to remember... I wasn't
:22:12. > :22:17.working at that time, so I didn't have any lines to learn. But it was
:22:17. > :22:20.hard to put things together. So I didn't mind. And they recommended a
:22:20. > :22:27.liver transplant and I said, no, I'm 65, I've had a wonderful life
:22:27. > :22:34.and I'd rather not, I don't want to be a cripple. And they said, you
:22:34. > :22:37.won't be a cripple, you can live a normal life. They introduced me to
:22:37. > :22:40.a guy called Dallas Taylor, the drummer for Crosby Stills and Nash,
:22:40. > :22:44.and he had ruined his liver with all kinds of things and had a
:22:44. > :22:47.successful transplant and came to talk to me. He introduced me to a
:22:47. > :22:55.12 step program, which I still go through, and got me involved in
:22:56. > :23:00.searching for another way of facing life. And it worked. It worked, a
:23:00. > :23:08.new lease of life? I had my transplant and I felt wonderful
:23:09. > :23:15.immediately afterwards. I remember a girl, her phone number from when
:23:15. > :23:21.I was 16 years old. All these things were coming to mind. Do you
:23:21. > :23:26.look forward or back in life? Forward now. This is the cream on
:23:27. > :23:31.the top. It's all wonderful. I look backwards in my book and that's as
:23:31. > :23:35.far I want to go. Good to have got it off your chest? I think so, yeah.
:23:35. > :23:41.I'd never write another book. That's for sure. Would you do
:23:41. > :23:44.Dallas again? I'd do a reunion again. The bloom is off the rose