Larry Hagman - Hello Darlin'

by LARRY HAGMAN

  My first episode in that role had the famous actor George Sanders as its guest star. On the first day of shooting, he wasn’t prepared when the director asked if he knew his lines, and I was amazed that an actor of his stature arrived on the set like that. But George was unfazed; in fact he had what to him was a perfectly good explanation, saying, “You didn’t expect me to learn my lines on my time, did you?”

  I always knew my lines. They liked me, and maybe they would’ve used me more often on The Rogues, but the program was canceled.

  We still hadn’t heard about Jeannie, so I had to try hustling more work. It wasn’t out there, at least for me, and one morning I turned to Maj and said, “Honey, I think you have to go back to work.” She said no. She told me that she was taking my children to the beach for the day. Instead, she told me to continue looking for work. “Stay positive,” she said.

  I took her advice. I spent the day trying to find work, talking to my agent, networking with friends, and trying not to think about Maj and the kids on the beach. As it turned out, Maj wasn’t on the beach. She’d come home in the afternoon, and soon after, the phone rang. It was Sidney Sheldon. He asked if we had a bottle of champagne. She said, “Sidney, we don’t even have a bottle of Gallo.”

  Just then I walked in through the door.

  “Sit down, Larry,” Maj said. “I have something to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “Sidney just called and said the pilot sold, the network ordered twenty-two, and it starts shooting right away.”

  We were so happy. I was so relieved.

  “That’s called having faith,” Maj said. “Trust your instincts. They’re always right.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The show didn’t need to start off as a battle, but it did.

  In the spring of 1965, NBC green-lighted I Dream of Jeannie, and it seemed as if forces were conspiring against us. First, Barbara announced she was pregnant, making it necessary to shoot the initial ten episodes as quickly as possible. NBC signaled they didn’t have much faith in the series by insisting on shooting the first season in black-and-white to keep costs to a minimum. Or at least that was how it was explained to me. The network was also worried the censors would go nuts every time Jeannie said she wanted to “please” her master. Finally, to my way of thinking, the director was all wrong.

  In short, it was the TV business as usual, and that’s exactly what I wanted to avoid—business as usual. My goal was to make the best sitcom ever. It was an obsession that I brought onto the set and into meetings by questioning everything and making suggestions, always with the same goal—to make it as good as possible. I never criticized anything without making a suggestion I thought was different or better. I was driven. Gene Nelson misinterpreted my behavior as that of an ego-driven actor chasing stardom. But the cast knew better. I made it very clear that my interest was only in the show. If Jeannie did well, all of us would benefit.

  I think I had my points. After a while, the scripts contained the same jokes week after week. I got frustrated. Billy and I would create physical gags so we wouldn’t be just talking heads. But our efforts at creating something off the page irritated Gene. As far as I was concerned, he didn’t understand the kind of comedy we were trying to create. He also blew up one day when I insisted that we couldn’t simply let Jeannie blink people away without showing where they went. Otherwise viewers might think she killed them. I suggested we always blink them someplace amusing and get a laugh. Ultimately Sidney decided, and he went with my idea.

  After the first ten shows, Gene wanted me fired. He must’ve given an ultimatum because Sidney asked me how I felt about Gene returning as director.

  “You can bring him back if you want,” I said. “But I won’t be here.”

  Apparently Gene had gone to Sidney and suggested writing an episode in which Jeannie’s bottle was lost and then found by someone else, who would become her new master. As far as he was concerned, that would solve the Larry Hagman problem. But Sidney told him that NBC didn’t have a problem with Larry Hagman. In fact, the network loved me. As a result, one of my problems was solved. Gene didn’t return after we finished those ten episodes.

  * * *

  But there were other problems, which made me like a volcano set to erupt. One in particular vied for my attention with the show. My father was very sick in Weatherford. His condition was brought on partly by age, partly by his own negligence. Toward the end of spring, he’d gone to the Weatherford Country Club, had some drinks, and as he would often do, he stripped down to his Skivvies, and dove into the pool. Nobody had told him they’d drained it.

  He survived, but a short time later, while fishing with his friend James Porter McFarland, he had a stroke and fell out of the boat. Somehow James got him out of the water and drove him to the hospital.

  He recovered. But about three months later he suffered another stroke, this one massive, and it left him in a coma. His weight dropped from 265 pounds to 120. He was a helpless skeleton. We were told he had absolutely no hope of recovering. He just lay in bed and had no awareness of anything as far as anyone could tell. He wouldn’t have wanted to be in that condition.

  I visited him as much as Jeannie’s tight schedule allowed. Dad was in a room with four other guys. One of them, a man named Walter, had tried to blow his brains out thirteen years earlier, but his attempt had been only partially successful. He’d given himself a perfect lobotomy. Consequently, he sat in a chair grinding his teeth, sweating, and talking some indecipherable language. Whenever I visited Dad, I’d always say, “Hello, Walter,” wipe his mouth off, and try to figure out if the sounds he made had any meaning.

  All of us hated seeing Dad in that condition. At the time I knew a guy who had access to pharmaceuticals, legal or otherwise. He could get anything. So before I went to visit Dad for what turned out to be the last time, I had him get me the kind of drug that U-2 pilot Gary Powers was supposed to swallow when the Soviets shot him down.

  Dad was the same as always. But we had a nice visit. I gave him a shave, as I always did, and I told him what was going on in my life. I had no idea if he understood. Probably not. Then came the moment that I’d thought so hard about. I got up from my chair, opened up Dad’s IV, and took out the pill I’d brought. I was scared to death. My hands shook and sweat poured off me the way it did Walter, who I noticed was staring right at me.

  Suddenly I lost my nerve. I knew that if Dad expired, Walter was going to yell his first intelligible words in thirteen years. He would point at me and yell at the top of his lungs, “He did it.”

  I closed the IV, kissed Dad, and left the hospital, never to see him again. Mercifully, he passed away on his own about a month later. He never saw the premiere of I Dream of Jeannie on September 18, 1965.

  * * *

  I was in New York promoting the series, walking up Fifth Avenue, when I bumped into director Sidney Lumet. We were delighted to see each other. He was carrying a script for his adaptation of Mary McCarthy’s novel The Group. He described the story, about the lives of eight girls from Vassar in the 1930s, suggested there might be a role in the film for me, and told me to read it and pick one out.

  I’d never been given that freedom before, and naturally I picked out a part that ran through the entire movie. Sidney was surprised at the role I selected. He said it wasn’t what he’d had in mind. I didn’t explain my reasoning—the longer the role and the bigger the part, the more I got paid. It was Candice Bergen’s first movie and she was gorgeous. But of course, all the girls in the film were drop-dead beautiful. I looked forward to going to work every single day.

  After the movie, Maj and I got a camper and drove the children all through Canada on our way to Seattle, where Mother was performing. One day we were going through a desolate stretch of highway when I stopped for gas. The station attendant noticed our California license plates and asked if we were by any chance from Los Angeles. I said yes. He showed me a Canadian newspaper whose front page was plastere
d with pictures of L.A. on fire.

  Great columns of black smoke filled the sky. Watts was burning, the result of devastating riots. I was really shaken. Maj was too. It was very emotional, thinking of how miserable and enraged black people had to be to burn their own homes, stores, neighborhoods. We cut our trip short, stopping briefly to see Mother in her show in Seattle, and then made a beeline to L.A.

  In October, work started up again on Jeannie, without Gene Nelson. In his place, Sidney brought in Edward Swackhamer, my favorite director. He also hired Claudio Guzmán, a veteran producer who knew how to handle me. Ted Flicker even came in to direct. Everything I wanted was mine, and I was excited and happy to be a part of a successful show. In general, I was having fun. Still, it didn’t stop me from pushing for better scripts.

  I was naive. I didn’t know that once you got a good thing, you didn’t change it. But I always felt we could make the show even better, and I pushed for it. I didn’t know how to settle. On two occasions I got so frustrated that I called Maj from the set and told her to start packing, I was ready to quit. She took it in stride, as did the others. After the second time, Hayden gently massaged my shoulder and offered some good advice.

  “Anyone who quits a successful show is seen as insane,” he said. “You’d be crazy to leave. It’s so hard to get a successful show like this. Nobody will ever trust you again.”

  Fortunately, my cast mates were always supportive. Barbara, who was like a rock all the way through the series, also wanted better scripts but she never complained. It wasn’t in her nature. Billy was right with me; we had so much fun creating our shtick. Whatever I wanted, he was for it.

  Sidney was the guy responsible for the whole thing, and he patiently accepted the fact that I could be difficult. I think he put up with me because he understood I battled for all the right reasons. As he said, “Larry’s problems stem from his being such a perfectionist. He wants to own the world and own it this afternoon.”

  In truth, I was in a hurry, but there was a reason. After our son, Preston, was born Maj was prescribed a medication called Bontril to help her lose weight. She had no idea the pills were uppers. Neither did I when I started taking them around the same time to keep my own weight in check and for energy, which, boy howdy, they gave me.

  Throughout Jeannie’s first season, I took them twice a day without knowing the psychological effects they were having on me. After we started the second season, Maj tried to refill the Bontril prescription. The pharmacist refused, explaining there was a new state law that prohibited selling that particular drug. Maj said he told her that it was because it could become habit-forming.

  “That’s a lot of bullshit,” I said. “I’ve been taking them every day for years and…”

  Suddenly I heard what I was saying and a lightbulb went off. We stopped Bontril and tobacco at the same time. The effects were devastating. Coming down off nicotine is hard enough. Add amphetamines and you have serious problems.

  I certainly did.

  They were so obvious that one day on the set Ted, thinking I was flipping out, strongly advised me to go see his therapist, Sidney Prince.

  I pooh-poohed it until one day on the set I lost it all. I don t know what triggered it, but I had a breakdown. I was crying, vomiting, and shitting at the same time. Even the wax from my ears was coming out. I was exploding. I decided right there I’d better go see Sidney Prince. They put me in the back of a pickup because I was such a mess nobody wanted to put me in their car. They took me to Sidney s. He talked to me gently once I’d calmed down.

  “I’m going to tell you something and you may not realize it now, in fact you probably wont realize it, but try to focus on it,” he said.

  I nodded, waiting for words that would solve my problem.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said.

  “That’s all?” I said. “I’m paying you a hundred dollars an hour and you’re telling me don’t worry about it?”

  “Yeah. Don’t worry about it.” He paused. “Look at it this way. You’re in a golden prison. You’re getting paid a couple of thousand dollars a week to do something you love, and you only have to do it nine months out of the year. What could be better than that?”

  The next time I saw Sidney, he gave me a copy of The Joyous Cosmology, Alan Watts’s landmark 1962 book about alternative ways of perception, consciousness, and spirituality. It was an influential guide for those on the leading edge of the changes taking place in the culture, but hell, I couldn’t make any sense out of it no matter how many times I read it.

  Sidney also introduced me to Zen and other alternative ways of thinking I never even heard about. He told me about Esalen, the Big Sur outpost known for its workshops, encounter groups, and hot tubs. Maj and I went for the hot tubs, lectures (we heard Ray Bradbury there), and tai chi lessons. Another time, when I was on a camping trip with Preston, we walked into Esalen, ducked into a lecture hall, and there was Alan Watts himself, speaking in his lovely English accent. After listening for about twenty minutes, I still didn’t understand what he was talking about, but he made me curious.

  I finally met Watts at a friend’s house in Malibu. When he came in, my friend asked what he wanted to drink and I expected this erudite, charming Englishman to ask for herb tea. Instead he requested a very dry double martini, and I was blown away.

  Maj and I also took up flying. Now that I had some money I indulged in flying lessons for us. I’d always dreamed of learning to fly. Since we had only our student licenses, we always had to rent two planes if we wanted to go anywhere together. But we got a kick from flying side by side. One time we flew to Santa Barbara for lunch, and when we landed back at the Santa Monica airport, the guy who’d rented us the planes asked how was lunch.

  “Great,” I said. “We had hamburgers and shakes.”

  “How much was it?” he asked.

  “About two hundred and eighty dollars,” I said, adding in the cost of the planes.

  One time I flew over the set of Jeannie on a day when I was upset about something. I opened the door and tried to piss all over Columbia Studios. But I didn’t account for the wind, and the spray blew right back at me. It should’ve taught me something about vindictiveness. Another time, when we were on location in the Mojave Desert, Maj circled the site for about fifteen minutes, causing us to shut down because of the noise. The director was standing on the ground shaking his fist and threatening to call the FAA until I recognized the numbers on the plane as the one we’d been using, and I knew it was my wife.

  * * *

  One day in therapy it hit me. I didn’t have anything to complain about. Not anything real.

  “How do you sit there and listen to the woes of people like me?” I asked.

  “I’ve trained all my life for it,” he said. “What else am I going to do? Besides, it’s my living.”

  Then Sidney put away his notes. The hour was nearly done. It was the time in our session when he summed up what we’d talked about or cracked a joke that put things into perspective. This time he did neither. Instead he held up my file so both of us could see how thick it was and then asked if I felt better or worse for all of our talks. I had no answer.

  “Exactly,” he said. “You’ve been coming here for a couple years and we could be in therapy for as long as you want. But you’re troubled by the same things you were when you came here three years ago. As I told you then, you’re in a golden prison. But life is not so bad, is it?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Right. You don’t need therapy as much as a lot of other people. I know what you should do,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Why don’t you drop some acid?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The idea of trying LSD lodged in my brain and wouldn’t go away. Then Maj and I went to a party at Brandon De Wilde’s home in Topanga Canyon. Peter Fonda was there. We’d met years earlier in New York and we were glad to see each other again. We led Peter to our van and told him that we’d rec
ently seen him in The Trip, a movie Jack Nicholson directed about a man going through a bad divorce, who in an effort to understand himself better takes LSD. We told Peter we really liked the film and thought he was great in it.

  I also explained that I’d been thinking about taking acid myself.

  A few days later, Peter took me to see Crosby, Stills and Nash in concert. After the show we went backstage and visited with David Crosby. I expressed my desire to turn on, and before we left, David handed me a handful of tabs. This wasn’t ordinary LSD. It was the purest acid available, made by Stanley Owlsley, the famed underground chemist from San Francisco.

  I kept them for close to a month before the time seemed right to trip. My friend Larry Hall, the grandson of Big Jess Hall from Weatherford, was in L.A. He’d dropped acid a few times before, and for my initial journey I thought it would be wise to try it with someone who knew the ropes as my guide.

  The two of us met on a Saturday morning at my house. Maj was out with the kids. I wanted the environment comfortable and secure, since I’d been told that acid stripped you of all emotional and psychological protection. I wore a hooded brown terry cloth robe that Maj had made. I looked like a monk. I’d also fasted for a couple of days as recommended by Larry. I swallowed a tab, sat back in the living room, and waited for something to happen.

  Without warning, I felt a buzz just below my navel. I thought this must be what they talked about—vibrations. Boy, was it ever!

  Suddenly I saw the entrance to a cave across the room. It was guarded by octopuslike creatures with long writhing tentacles. There were also two other creatures that looked like lions with feathers. Then I turned and saw my grandmother, who’d died when I was twelve. She was to my left, hovering about eight feet above me. She sat in the same position I was in, and wore the same robe. She didn’t speak or motion. She simply looked at me with a wonderful, comforting smile and told me not to worry about it.