Hagman Larry - Hello Darlin: tall (and absolutely true) tales about my life

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Copyright 2001 by Majlar Productions, Inc. f/s/o Larry Hagman

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hagman, Larry.

Hello darlin: tall (and absolutely true) tales about my life / Larry Hagman.

p. cm.

1. Hagman, Larry. 2. ActorsUnited StatesBiography. I. Title: Hello darlin. II. Title.

PN2287.H17 A3 2001

791.45028092dc21

[B] 2001049498

ISBN 0-7432-2181-8

eISBN: 978-0-743-22509-0
ISBN: 978-0-743-22181-8

http://www.Simonspeakers.com

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I want to thank first of all Maj Irene Axelsson Hagman, my beautiful wife of forty-seven years. Without her cooperation, cajoling, and her memory I would never have gotten this book out. With all my love and affection, thanks.

To Todd Gold, who has written many articles about me and was my collaborator on this endeavor and great friend and ally.

And Teri Prather, my assistant, who had to put up with all kinds of nonsense from me during the writing of this book.

And of course, to my liver donor, without whose really, really, really important contribution I would not be here to write this book.

Hello Darlin

Everyone has a moment when life pulls a U-turn. Mine occurred in Weatherford, Texas.

It was the summer after my senior year of high school. I was seventeen years old. Two years earlier, Id left a comfortable liberal school or rich kids in bucolic Vermont to be with my dad, a prominent lawyer in the small Texas town. Id said I wanted to work as a cowboy. That time had finally come. I had my hat, my jeans, my boots everything but a job.

My dad got me work in the machine shop at the Antelope Tool Company, a stultifyingly hot Quonset hut where I made a tool used in oil drilling that a machine behind me spit out at a rate a hundred times faster than I could make them by hand. Then I switched to unloading 100-pound cement bags from railroad boxcars under the fiery August sun, until the companys owner transferred me to his housetheoretically a promotionwhere I was put to work digging ditches for sewer lines and a hole for his swimming pool.

But that was the toughest of all the jobs, and probably as close to hell as Ie ever been. Shovels and picks were useless against the hard ground. Every few feet, we had to blast it with dynamite. One sweltering afternoon, as I leaned unsteadily against my shovel at the bottom of a ten-foot hole where guys much older and tougher than me were passing out from the heat and the dynamite fumes, I had an epiphany. The only horses Id seen all summer were in the local rodeo. The hell with trying to be a cowboy.

I think I want to be an actor, I told my dad.

Soon I was standing on my mothers doorstep in New York. My mother was Broadway star Mary Martin. Its hard to imagine anyone not knowing who my mother was, but nowadays, eight years after her death, Ill meet young people up to twenty-five or thirty who have no idea of the Mary Martin of South Pacific or The Sound of Music. But mention Peter Pan and their eyes light up. They can tell me how old they were and where they were when they watched it. When I tell them that Peter Pan was my mother, they light up but then look incredulous. One eighteen-year-old girl said, Thats impossible. Peter was a boy. And anyhow, he never grew up.

Such is the power of TV, and unfortunately they show Peter Pan very seldom now. So perhaps there will be many more children who will miss her extraordinary performance. Four of my granddaughters were watching the cartoon version of Peter Pan and halfway through, one of them asked, When does the real Peter Pan come on?

The real Peter Pan worked some of her magic to get me started. She also gave me some advice:

Always know your lines. Hang up your own clothes. And try to be reasonably sober.

* * *

In this book Im going to describe how I did my best. A lot already has been said about me. Ive been described as the Mad Monk of Malibu, the kooky actor in the caftan who led flag parades up and down the beach, didnt speak on Sundays, and occasionally roared up to the grocery store on a Harley while dressed in a yellow chicken suit. Its also no secret that Im a recovering alcoholic whose life has been prolonged by a liver transplant.

Its all true, but theres more to say, lots more. Some of its funny, some of its serious, and some contains the wisdom that comes from discovering that having it all doesnt mean you actually have it all. In writing this book, I decided to throw all that mumbo in the gumbo, to stir in the stories, the little-known details, and the lessons Ive learned, and I wanted to do it before I couldnt remember it anymore or we destroy the planet, whichever comes first.

Im often asked how my liver transplant operation changed my life. Aside from saving it, nothing changed. It confirmed what Ive always tried to dolive my life as fully as possible before the clock runs out. My happiness comes from being a husband, father, and grandfather of five, not from stardom, which is a fluke. I starred in two very successful television series. When people ask for my secret, I tell them its been 20 percent hard work, 80 percent luck. I think a lot of life comes down to that. If you push too hard for something, it seems to retreat. If you hold on to something too tightly, it manages to slip away.

So little is in our control. I was once asked what were the three luckiest things that happened in my life, and I said, Being born white, in the U.S.A., and in the twentieth century. Even with all the luck in the world, you cant ignore fate. Sometimes fate requires you to need a liver transplant. Other times all you need is a sense of humor. The other day I was in a restaurant and two young girls, fifteen or sixteen, came up to my table and asked if I was the guy who played Major Nelson in I Dream of Jeannie. When I said yes, one of them said, You used to be really hot.

Real life is a roller-coaster, full of spills and thrills. As I see it, Ive spent much of my life in the business of crowd control. Each night, millions of people are at home staring at a box, and Im inside it. If they werent watching TV, theyd be outside rioting in the streets, breaking windows, and overturning police cars. I help keep them sedated, and at the same time I help sell cars, aspirin, deodorant, and feminine hygiene products. So far Ive been pretty good at it. Hell, I even take a little credit for helping bring down the Eastern bloc.

Memories are like moneyyou cant take them with you, so you might as well share them. Between the ages often and eighteen, I had a steamer trunk in which I kept all my most valuable possessions. When I struck out on my own to make it as an actor, I left it with a costume designer who had a large apartment in New York City. Ruth Morley was her name. She kept that trunk for me until she died, and then I lost all trace of it. All the stuff Id collected was gone.