Larry Hagman passed away late Friday night / Saturday morning and after a long battle with the after-effects of a hard-drinking life, that once saw him down as many as a reported four bottles of champagne during the filming of an episode of the famous Dallas TV Series.
The news came, for this blogger, via CNN text late that night, so getting up and pouring a glass of wine was the appropriate action. Otherwise, getting back to sleep was out of the question; Larry Hagman wasn’t a person who you associated with passing on, even when he was sick.
Many remember Mr. Hagman as Dallas’ ‘JR Ewing,’ and of course, the talk goes back to that best example of appointment television, “Who Shot JR?” But this blogger remembers Larry Hagman on I Dream Of Jeanie, where he played the astronaut Captain/Major Anthony “Tony” Nelson. What’s interesting is that character was, to this blogger, weak, and not willing to just plain profess his love for Jeannie, thus leading to a lot of strange outcomes.
The role of JR was much better for Hagman, and tapped into his Texas roots to produce one of the most intriguing fictional characters of our time. Hagman was just making his comeback in the new Dallas when this happened.
Sadly.
Stay tuned.