Larry haggman

Born on September 21, 1931 in Forth Worth, Texas, Larry Martin Hagman was the son of Mary Martin , who after giving birth at 17 would become a stage and screen actress. His father, Benjamin Jack Hagman, was a lawyer. When the boy was five years old, his parents divorced, and he went to live with his grandmother in Los Angeles.

At age 15, Hagman was working on the Texas ranch of a friend of his father’s. In high school he joined the theater group, and fell in love with acting, especially since his comedic roles were highly celebrated. He started out professionally in small roles in Dallas and New York, and in 1951 was playing a role in the London version of “South Pacific,” which also featured his mother.

After a hiatus to fight in the Korean War, Hagman returned to acting, with numerous roles on stage. He made his television debut with the series Decoy , in 1957. He also appeared as a secondary in cinema, in titles such as First Victory , by Otto Preminger, where he was an army lieutenant.

Popularity came when he was recruited to star with Barbara Eden in the comic series My Beautiful Genius , which was a hit, especially in the United States. He played an astronaut, who after his ship crashes in the South Pacific, finds an attractive genius who will win his heart. It was on the air for five years.

With the comedy over, Hagman returned to supporting roles in titles such as The Idol , Harry and Fool , The Eagle Has Landed, and Superman , where he appeared briefly as a soldier helping a woman in distress. He also took part in several series that did not quite come together.

Although Hagman is remembered for the womanizing and amoral JR, in real life he was a one-woman man. He married the Swedish Maj Axelsson on December 18, with whom he would have two children, Heidi Kristina and Preston. It was precisely his wife who suggested that he read a promising script that he had been sent for a series that was going to be called Dallas . Ultimately, the couple agreed that it was an ideal role for Hagman.

The show – where he played JR, the unscrupulous eldest son of the Ewings, a family of oil businessmen – was a milestone in international television, and caused a true revolution in American drama series, with a clear influence on other later as Dynasty or Falcon Crest . It achieved unprecedented success, especially the final episode of the second season, when JR is shot by a mysterious person, leaving it up in the air if he would make it out alive. The series was broadcast between 1978 and 1991, and subsequently gave rise to three telefilms that continued the plot.

Finished Dallas, Hagman limited himself to interpreting secondary characters in titles such as Nixon or Primary Colors . He had a major role in Nip/Tuck, and appeared in two episodes of Desperate Housewives , playing the new husband of Stella, the mother of Linette Scavo. In Spain, where Dallas had been well received, Hagman shot two episodes of the Antena 3 series Somos cómplices .

Hagman’s life was marked by excess. Apart from his flirtations with drugs, the actor had a serious problem with alcoholism, and it is said that at the time of Dallas’ greatest popularity he was able to consume up to five bottles of champagne a day. As a consequence of his addiction, he was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver in 1992. Three years later he underwent a liver transplant, and since then he kept a photograph of the donor on the mirror in which he looked at himself every morning.

Hagman headed the cast of Dallas 2012 , the continuation of the legendary series that brought back JR, his brother Bobby and other original characters, although it gave more prominence to Josh Henderson (JR’s son) and Jesse Metcalfe (Bobby’s heir). . At the time of his death, Hagman had left five episodes of the second season of Dallas: The Heirs filmed , where now the writers will have no choice but to continue without the show’s engine.