Larry Hagman

The Man Who Got Paid to Bleed

Larry Hagman was not born as the most hated villain in America. Before he put on the wide-brimmed hat at the Southfork ranch, this cynical-smiling Texan spent years trying to find his place in the shadow of his mother, Broadway star Mary Martin. She was the queen of the stage, and he was simply a supporting player trying not to look like an intruder at parties in Malibu.

Hagman saw showbiz as a genetic inheritance.

In 1965, he landed in the fantasy comedy I Dream of Jeannie. That role as a desperate astronaut alongside Barbara Eden gave him the fame he needed to pay the bills, but it also typecast him as a nice guy he never quite felt comfortable playing. The public saw him as the ideal son-in-law, while he was looking for something dirtier and more real in the scripts that came his way.

Everything changed in 1978. CBS was looking for a man capable of embodying oil-fueled greed in a series called Dallas. Hagman read the script and saw a golden opportunity to stop being the good guy of television. He knew viewers love to hate a powerful man with no scruples.

And the gamble paid off.

The Summer the World Stood Still

On November 21, 1980, about 350 million people around the world glued themselves to their TVs. They wanted to know who had shot J.R. Ewing at the end of the previous season. That media event allowed the actor to negotiate a pay raise that made him the highest-paid actor in television of the era, earning 100,000 dollars per episode.

But money couldn't buy health. Off camera, his life was a constant contrast: while his character drank bourbon nonstop, the actor struggled with an alcohol addiction that wrecked his liver. During filming of the series' middle seasons, he was drinking up to five bottles of champagne a day to maintain what he called a state of functional euphoria.

In 1995, he underwent a liver transplant after being diagnosed with cancer and cirrhosis. That 16-hour operation changed his outlook on life and the industry. So he decided to use his public image to promote organ donation and fight smoking with a fierceness that recalled his best moments on the board of Ewing Oil.

Success doesn't always come for free.

Solar Panels and the Return to Texas

In his later years, he became obsessed with renewable energy. In 2003, he installed the largest private solar panel system in the United States at his Ojai mansion. He wryly said the sun was the only resource oil tycoons could not control or put in a barrel.

In 2012, he agreed to return to the role that made him a star in the new version of Dallas for the TNT network. He filmed much of the first season while battling throat cancer, which he kept secret so as not to scare off the project's investors. Because Hagman was, above all, a set animal who could never stay away from the spotlight.

He died on November 23, 2012 at a Texas hospital from complications of his illness. He left behind a fortune valued at 15 million dollars and a collection of Stetson hats that were auctioned months later by Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills.