Larry Hagman - Hello Darlin'

by LARRY HAGMAN

  * * *

  One night at the end of November, Maj and I had dinner at our favorite restaurant in Trieste. We’d had a wonderful time. We walked back to the hotel arm in arm, laughing and talking, not a care in the world. Some of the cast were in the lobby when we walked in. They gave us a look that asked how we could be enjoying ourselves so much at the moment. Then Edgar said, “You killed Kennedy! You killed Kennedy!”

  “What?” I said.

  “Yes, yes, you Texans. You’ve killed him.”

  At that moment we learned that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas. Maj and I were devastated. We spent the next few hours in our rooms listening to the BBC news on the radio. Our grief and sadness was profound. The next morning Maj and I went to the U.S. consulate in Trieste and paid our respects by signing a condolence book. When we finally got back to the States, the country was different, and though we didn’t immediately recognize it, so were we.

  Maj picked up the kids from Bebe in Sweden, and then we spent Christmas in Rome, where I finished The Cavern and we visited with our writer friend Gore Vidal, who lived around the corner from our apartment in Piazza Margana. It was a magical time. I remember our housekeeper, an old Italian woman, always barged through our bedroom door and asked, “Amore?” wondering if we were making love.

  Though I worked hard, I liked that the Italians always found time to break for long, delicious lunches and indulged in equally long dinners. There always seemed to be a party with fascinating people who would talk till three in the morning. Maj made sure the kids saw every important museum and ruin. She also had accounts throughout Rome; shopkeepers sent bills addressed to la bionda signora Americana con due bambini, the blond American lady with two children. She also rented a Fiat, and needed three or four new bumpers on that car by the time we left town two months later.

  It didn’t seem as if life could get any better, and I was right.

  * * *

  Back in New York, I met with Otto Preminger, who was about to direct the World War II epic In Harm’s Way. He had the biggest desk I’d ever seen in my life and afterward I learned why. You’d need to have a trampoline to vault it and strangle him. That man knew enough to make his throat inaccessible. But over dinner and in a meeting, he was the epitome of charm. Once the camera started to roll, though, he turned into a dictatorial ogre.

  He gave me several weeks of work on the movie, which shot in Hawaii. It seemed every male star in Hollywood was in it: Henry Fonda, Duke Wayne, and my friends Burgess Meredith, Patricia Neal, and Carroll O’Connor. Tom Tryon was the star. Every night a bunch of us met in one of our rooms for cocktails and we discussed ways we could murder Otto. We fantasized about putting massive amounts of Ex-Lax in his coffee, loosening the threads on the back of his director’s chair so when he leaned back he’d topple overboard, and countless other schemes.

  For me, he was at his worst while shooting a scene on the bow of a ship. There were at least a dozen of us in the shot, but it centered around Tom Tryon. Tom was a smart, talented actor who had worked with Otto in The Cardinal. All Tom had to do in this scene was take a piece of paper from a sailor who’d run down from the radio shack and then read the message. The first take was fine, and Otto seemed pleased. But then he asked how it was for sound.

  “We’re getting a lot of paper noise, Mr. Preminger,” the soundman replied.

  “Wet down the paper,” Otto said.

  The prop man spritzed the paper with water and we tried take two.

  “Are we still getting the rattle?” Otto asked after the second take.

  “Yes, Mr. Preminger.”

  “Wet it down again.”

  By the sixth take, the paper disintegrated and we’d fallen two hours behind schedule. All of us still had a line or two. Plus we had reverses, over-the-shoulders, close-ups. We were going to be on the bow of that ship all day. When I asked Tom if I could do anything to help, he looked around nervously and asked if the microphone was on.

  I checked.

  “No, we’re okay,” I said.

  “Otto makes me so fucking nervous that I tremble and it shakes the damn paper,” he said.

  “Didn’t you just make The Cardinal with him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is he always like this?”

  “It gets worse.”

  Indeed, the longer it took, the more things went wrong. The light changed, planes flew overhead, clouds drifted in and out. With each delay, Otto grew angrier, louder, and more temperamental. Waiting for my close-up was like standing on a firing line. He made everyone so overwrought and anxious they screwed up, including me.

  When my close-up finally came, I blew it.

  “Mr. Hagman, I understand you are a Broadway actor,” Otto said. “Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “So how come you are so … ineffectual?”

  “Oh shit, I’m sorry.”

  Otto stared at me with astonishment.

  “Do you always swear at your directors?” he asked.

  “Oh fuck, I’m sorry, Mr. Preminger.”

  “What?!” he exploded.

  Actors didn’t speak to directors like that, especially to him. But I was on a roll.

  I really started swearing. I literally frothed at the mouth. “Shit, I can’t get it. I’m an asshole. I’ll try to do better.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Otto, dumbfounded.

  He thought I was having a fit. He turned abruptly.

  “Print it and let’s move on.”

  He never bothered me again. He never gave me another close-up either. All of us swore we wouldn’t work with him again.

  I called Maj in New York to tell her how it had gone. She had just gone to the theater with Burgess, who’d finished his work on the movie about a week earlier, and she told me that she’d asked him how it had gone in Hawaii. She laughed while recalling how he’d said, “I’ll never work for that son of a bitch again.” Three months later, they were making another film together. What does that tell you about our profession?

  Chapter Fourteen

  There wasn’t much work when I got back to New York, and we didn’t have much money either. Not a good combination. Earlier, I’d signed with the big agency GAC, and I didn’t think my New York agent was paying enough attention to me. One day I sat in his office while he took one call after another without talking to me. For about two hours, I listened to him talk on the phone. Finally, I went into the foyer and called him. He picked up.

  “Hi, this is Larry Hagman,” I said.

  “Hi, Larry, what’s going on?”

  “What’s going on is you’re fired,” I said.

  “What for?”

  “I was just sitting in your office for two hours, listening to you talk to other people instead of me, and I got tired of it. So good-bye.”

  He rushed out, got me to cool off, and said I had to learn how the business worked from his perspective. That was fine, but then I explained my perspective—I was down to my last thirty cents and I had a family to feed. Not too long after, he called and said there was a good part for me in one of Alfred Hitchcock’s television dramas in Hollywood.

  “Oh God, I was just in L.A.,” I said.

  “Timing’s everything, kid.”

  Then I went through the routine. I asked to see the script. He asked, “Does it matter?” I said it didn’t. Then I asked about the money. Again he said, “Does it matter?” When you haven’t worked for nine months, what do you say to that except no, it doesn’t matter?

  The offer was $2,500 and a round-trip ticket. I went back to L.A. knowing full well that they’d never actually air the script, never mind finish filming it. It was about a young couple who move to L.A. from Illinois. The husband had suffered a war injury that left him unable to consummate the marriage. He hooked up with a cult of hoodlums looking to sacrifice a virgin. They drugged him and made him watch while they carved his wife’s heart out and then burned down the house.


  Good stuff, huh?

  Well, I knew it wasn’t going to go. Sure enough, we rehearsed the first act, broke for lunch, and when we came back they told us the network had read the script and canceled that show. At least I got to keep the money, which I promptly sent home.

  That left me in L.A. without a job, or even a prospect, but I called Maj and told her that I thought I should stay out there and look around. George Peppard, who I knew from New York, was red hot then. I was also very good friends with his girlfriend at the time, Elizabeth Ashley. We hooked up and George made it a special project of his to introduce me all over town. Nothing came of it, but I met a lot of people and you never know what comes from things like that.

  One of the people George introduced me to was actor Lee Marvin. We met on the set of Ship of Fools, which Liz Ashley was also in. While George was visiting with Liz, I started talking to Lee. We went out for drinks afterward and he invited me to visit his home. Soon Lee and his wife, Betty, and I became fast friends, and they helped me settle into town. They were among the dozen or so friends I invited to have Thanksgiving dinner with me at my house, which I borrowed from Ted Flicker, who was renting it from his old Bard roommate, 1776 author Peter Stone, in the Hollywood hills.

  For Thanksgiving dinner Lee drove up to my house in a brand-new Lincoln convertible that Betty had given him as a birthday present, and he quickly got shit-faced. He was funny when he was loaded, but he was also a bit reckless and quite a bit unpredictable. That turned out to be bad news for my turkey. I’d never cooked a turkey before, but I took this one out of the oven and placed it on the table to a chorus of oohs and ahs. Lee took one look at my masterpiece, picked it up, and threw it in the pool.

  “Let’s see if the son of a bitch can swim!” he said.

  I watched the bird sink like a bowling ball, trailing a film of greasy dressing across the water. After a moment of shock, I dove in with all my clothes on and rescued the bird from the bottom of the pool. On the way back to the kitchen I used the old joke, “Don’t worry, I’ll get the other one.” I got it in the kitchen, patted it down, spooned in the remainder of the Stove Top stuffing, and reentered to a not-so-enthusiastic chorus of oohs and ahs.

  Actually, it tasted pretty good, with a slight hint of cilantro … and chlorine.

  The party broke up in the wee hours, and Lee topped his earlier performance by backing his car through the three-foot-high wall that protected the parking area from a thirty-foot drop. His brand-new Lincoln teetered over the edge, looking like it was about to fall. I had a bunch of guys stand on the front bumper while I unloaded Lee out the back. Then we tied down the car and had a tow truck come haul that boat back to level ground.

  Before driving off, Lee said, “Great party, kid. Happy Thanksgiving.” Then he roared off into the night.

  * * *

  Soon after, my agent sent me scripts for five pilots. I chose to read for I Dream of Jeannie, a new sitcom created by Sidney Sheldon for Screen Gems, which already had a hit with Bewitched. I had a feeling this was the right project. It was 100 percent instinct, but I liked the premise of Jeannie. It was good, wholesome, escapist fun, with a healthy dose of sexual tension.

  When I showed up, they’d signed Barbara Eden and had looked at many actors for the part of Captain Nelson, including Robert Conrad, Darren McGavin, and Gary Collins. I had two readings. I thought I nailed the first one, done for the casting director, and called Maj and told her that I had a good feeling. She made a suit for Jane Morgan in exchange for airfare to L.A., and arrived the day of my second reading, which was in front of Sidney Sheldon. I thought that went equally well. Maj shared in the excitement when they called me to do a screen test.

  I went in confident. When I stepped in front of the camera, Edward Wandrink Swackhamer, the director, saw I knew my stuff and did me a huge favor by stepping back and letting me do my thing. Afterward, I felt great. I went home and told Maj that I had a feeling in my gut. “I’ve got this one.”

  “If you feel that way, then I’ll go home,” she said.

  Between us, we had less than thirty-five dollars. But as Maj says, we had a lot of faith.

  A few days later, my agent called with great news. I got the pilot.

  Hot damn! I knew it was going to go. I couldn’t see any reason why not. Before I even got in front of a camera, I made my deal for the series. I signed for $1,100 an episode, the standard fee unless you had a big name. I was thrilled.

  I rented a tiny, two-bedroom cottage in Rustic Canyon. You had to cross a little wood bridge that spanned the flood control channel to get in the front door. I remember doing the Royal Canadian Air Force exercises there and running a mile every morning at 4 A.M.

  I was in great shape when we shot the pilot.

  Sidney Sheldon said he knew I Dream of Jeannie would be a hit when his nine-year-old daughter gave his original script a thumbs-up. I agreed. The premise was great and the cast’s chemistry was there the day all of us met for the first time at the studio. Barbara was gorgeous, a marvelous professional, and a really nice person. Bill Daily had the timing of a great comic and a gift for improvisation. And Hayden Rorke was the droll anchor, on-and offscreen. I knew if I did my job as the straight man with the proper sense of silly I’d get as many laughs as everyone else.

  I respected Sidney, who’d won a best original screenplay Academy Award for Cary Grant’s The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer. Sidney had also created The Patty Duke Show for TV. He dreamt up I Dream of Jeannie after Screen Gems executives asked him to come up with a series like Bewitched. He was smart, tough, diplomatic, insightful, and he meticulously jotted down notes in a little book whenever anyone passed along a suggestion, idea, or complaint. If he wrote it down, it got done. I was personally responsible for filling several volumes.

  In the pilot, which was delightfully simple, astronaut Tony Nelson’s space capsule makes an emergency landing on an island where he finds a bottle containing a two-thousand-year-old genie, who announces that he is her master for life. When he’s rescued, she hides in his bags, and both of them end up back at his Cocoa Beach, Florida, home, where he’s forced to keep her a secret.

  The show was timeless, clean, innocent, and to my way of thinking, it had all the elements of a hit.

  There was one problem. During rehearsal, Bill and I were extemporizing, adding sight gags and physical business, and it irritated the hell out of the director, Gene Nelson. He wanted to call all the shots, and he was against deviating from the script. He also wanted to take all the credit; that’s another story. I didn’t care who got the credit, I simply wanted whatever got on film to be funny.

  At another point during the pilot, I offered a suggestion to Gene, and he told me to shut up and let him get “the thing done.” I replied, “This isn’t a thing, it’s a comedy,” and I explained that as far as I was concerned, it was supposed to be fun. When all was said and done, I felt like it was fun. We did a great job on the pilot. But with Gene’s attitude, I didn’t see how he could direct a comedy. He felt the same way about me. From the start, we were like oil and water. Luckily, we only had to shoot the one show and then see if it sold to the network.

  I spent Christmas in New York with Maj and the kids and Bebe. We’d decided to take a chance that the pilot would sell, and move to L.A. Maj had made enough money to buy a white Plymouth station wagon for $2,500. Val had a connection with Chrysler and got it at a huge discount. We packed up the kids and Bebe and started the drive cross-country. We stopped to see my dad in Weatherford and had a full Texas experience for New Year’s at the country club.

  The country club was the only place you could drink in Parker County. Parker County was dry. You weren’t allowed to buy liquor there. Nor were there any bars. But because of some obscure law, you were allowed to have a locker at the club where you could keep liquor. You’d buy your setups at exorbitant prices and could pour your own drinks among your friends.

  Juanita, after a few, or perhaps more than a few, libations, t
ook an interest in the band. Dad and Maj and I were hanging out at our table with some of his old cronies, who were inspecting my foreign bride, as they still called Maj, and the bandleader came over and spoke to my dad.

  “Mr. Hagman, could you ask Mrs. Hagman to come back to the table? She spilled a drink on the drums and they’re sounding all soggy.”

  Dad dutifully went over there and guided Juanie back to the table. Everything was fine until we noticed she was missing about half an hour later. Soon a dreadful smell permeated the room. The bandleader came back over, livid, and literally shaking.

  “Mr. Hagman, your wife has just puked in the electric piano. She shorted it out. That’s the odor you smell.”

  Dad again dutifully retrieved Juanita and we all called it a night. But the night wasn’t quite finished. While Dad loaded her in the car, he slammed the door and broke four of her fingers. We spent the rest of New Years at the hospital. But that wasn’t the worst of it. She did all of his legal typing, so she had to spend the next few weeks learning how to type his torts with one hand.

  * * *

  After we finally arrived at our little brown cottage, Bebe said goodbye and flew back to New York while we settled into our new home. Three months had to pass before I heard whether Jeannie was going to be on the fall television schedule. In the meantime, I had to earn a living.

  About that time, Fail-Safe was finally released into theaters and it was seen by Bob Walker, a casting director for Four Star Studios. After seeing the movie, Bob swore that I spoke Russian and he tracked me down for a voice-over part in an episode of The Rogues, a popular TV series starring David Niven, Charles Boyer, and Gig Young. The part called for someone who spoke Russian. I never told Bob that I didn’t know one word, and he didn’t ask.

  But I pulled it off by finding a Russian actor who kindly tape-recorded my dialogue, and I learned the proper pronunciation by mimicking his accent. It worked. They liked me. There were a couple shows left in their season, but Gig had a previous commitment that he couldn’t get out of. Shooting on The Rogues had gone weeks over and the producers were in a bind. Bob Walker persuaded the producers to bring me onto the show as Gigs characters cousin. In essence, I took over for Gig.