Larry Hagman mini-bio: The son of a legendary actress (Mary Martin) and a district attorney, Larry Hagman
was born Larry Hageman in Fort Worth, Texas, on September 21, 1931. After his
parents' divorce, he moved to Los Angeles to live with his grandmother. When he was
12, his grandmother died and he moved back to his mother's place, who had remarried
and was launching a Broadway career. After attending Bard College in New York
State, he decided to follow his mother's acting road. His first stage tryout was
with the Margo Jones Theatre-in-the-Round in Dallas, Texas. He then appeared in the
New York City Center production of "Taming the Shrew," followed by a year in
regional theater. In his early-to-mid twenties, Larry moved to England as a member
of the cast of his mother's stage show, "South Pacific", and was a member of the
cast for five years. After that, he enrolled in the U.S. Air Force, where he
produced and directed several series for members of the service. After completing
his service in the Air Force, Larry returned to New York City for a series of
Broadway and off-Broadway plays, esp. "Once Around the Block", "Career", "Comes A
Day", "A Priest in the House", "The Beauty Part", "The Warm Peninsula", "The
Nervous Set" among many others. He began his television career in 1961 with a
number of guest appearances on shows as "The ALCOA Hour". He was later chosen to be
in the popular daytime series "The Edge of Night" (1956), in which he starred for 2
years. But that was his start, he later went on to become the friendliest
television star in the NBC sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie" (1965), in which he played
the amiable astronaut, Anthony Nelson. In the series, his life was endangered by
this gorgeous blonde bombshell genie played by Barbara Eden. The series ran for 5
years and after that, he continued his success in "The Good Life" (1971) and "Here
We Go Again" (1973), as well as a number of guest-starring roles on many series. He
was also with Lauren Bacall in the television version of the hit Broadway musical
Applause (1973) (TV). In 1977, "Dallas" (1978) came aboard and Larry's career was
secured. He credits "Superchick" for convincing him to do the show. This program of
an excessively rich Texas family, was one of the best, beloved, most-watched shows
of all time as he portrayed the role of the evil yet perverted millionaire J.R.
Ewing, the man who loved to be hated. The series ran for an amazing 14 1/2 seasons
and the "Who shot J.R.?" episode remains the second highly-rated television show in
the history of the satellite. Since his name was familiar with Texas, it was
suiting that he hosted "Lone Star" (1985), an eight-part documentary series related
to the history of Texas, for the Public Television Stations. That aired while
celebrating the 150th anniversary of Texas as an independent republic. In the
spring of 1987, Kari-Lorimar released "Larry Hagman--Stop Smoking for Life:.
Proceeds from this home video were donated to the American Cancer Society. In July
1995, he needed a liver transplant in order for him to regain his life back after
years of strong drinking that led to cirrhosis. He went over to Cedars-Sinai
Medical Center for this where he spent 7 weeks in the hospital, and an operation
took 16 hours but saved his life. In July 1996, 1 year after he had a new liver, he
served as the National Spokesperson for the 1996 U.S. Transplant Games presented by
the National Kidney Foundation and, on November 2, he later received the Award for
his efforts in escalating public awareness of the concept of organ donation. Today,
he continues to serve as an advocate of organ donation and transplantation. In
November 1996, he starred in Dallas: J.R. Returns (1996) (TV), a 2-hour movie in
which the ratings were a huge success for CBS, as well as in the network's
one-hour, drama series "Orleans" (1997) when his role of Judge Luther Charbonnet
gave him some of the best reviews of his 36-year-career. When he was feeling better
than he had for so many years, he completed his 2 movie projects: The Third Twin
(1997) (TV), a four hour mini-series based on the author's best selling novel, that
aired on CBS, and Mike Nichols's Primary Colors (1998), a film based on the
best-selling book by a journalist, Joe Klein. Starring in that film were John
Travolta, Emma Thompson, Billy Bob Thornton, Kathy Bates and Adrian Lester. Larry
played Governor Picker, an antipolitics politician who stands a grave danger crisis
to the governor's bid for office. Primary Colors was his second presidential film
having also appeared in Oliver Stone's Nixon (1995). Following these movies, his
second Dallas reunion movie, Dallas: War of the Ewings (1998) (TV), aired on CBS.
He also served as Executive Producer. Away from films, Larry is actively involved
in a series of civic and philanthropic events. An adamant non-smoker, he served as
the chairperson of the American Cancer Society's "Great American Smokeout", from
1981 to 1992.
