The Sunday Memory Drawer - Remembering Larry Hagman

When I keep mining my memory bank to come up with these Sunday pieces, I wonder how deep the well is.  How many crazy things can I conjure up from my life?

Well, now, we're in a position that some of the TV icons of my existence will start passing on.  Actors or TV characters that left an enormous impression on me through all the formative years of my life.  We already lost one earlier this year when Andy Griffith died.  Last week, Larry Hagman passed away.

And, one more time, I have a fresh subject for the Sunday Memory Drawer. 

The photo above was posted by "Dallas" co-star Linda Gray and it was supposedly taken two weeks before he died.  He looks damn good to me and, while he was publicly suffering from cancer, Hagman obviously got perilously sick very quickly.  Supposedly, he had been shooting second season episodes of the new and amazingly well done TNT "Dallas" reboot.  Now, writers will scramble to send off the legendary character of J.R. Ewing in a style befitting the show.

And the actor.

So, Larry Hagman was an actor toiling his craft right to the end.  And that's a good thing.  We should all pass on in the same style.  Doing something we like.  For instance, if I was leaving life tomorrow, I'd love for it to be right after I wrote something particularly funny.  That would be perfect serendipity.

I was delighted to see the new incarnation of "Dallas" on TNT.  Producer Cynthia Cidre had watched all 357 episodes of the original and has almost inexplicably been able to capture the tone and fun from the 70s and 80s and update it perfectly for the 21st Century.  A wonderful blend of the elder Ewings with the new generation.  Indeed, despite J.R.'s now expected death in the revised plotline, the series can go on.  Just like in real life, torches are passed and people move on.  So, too, will and should the Ewings.

That said, all the news reports about Larry Hagman's death jolted me right back to the original series.  And the sheer enjoyment I got out of that and my other favorite nighttime soap, "Knots Landing."  Ironically, the producers planned a reunion between the "Knots" Ewings (Gary and Valene) with the Southfork bunch in an upcoming episode.  Sadly, that had yet to be shot.  I would have loved that scene where J.R. and Valene shoot verbal daggers at each other one more time.

Back when these shows were originally in prime time, viewership was different.  You might have had a VCR which could record one show within 24 hours.  There were no DVRs.  There was no delayed viewing.  And, since they didn't show reruns of nighttime soaps, you either watched it live and first run or you missed an episode altogether.

Somehow, I never missed an episode of either "Dallas" or "Knots Landing."  Neither did anybody else.  If you went to a Friday night party, you stopped drinking and eating long enough to watch.  If you went out to a movie or dinner, you went early enough so you could be home in time to watch.  Life was planned accordingly.

Such was the frenzy around "Dallas" when it caught fire back in the late 70s on CBS.  So much so that, when I recounted my Top 25 Favorite TV Shows of All Time on this blog several years ago, "Dallas" came in at #13.  Here's what I wrote at that time and it serves now as a fitting tribute to the late Larry Hagman.

Given our mutual love for the TV soap opera "Peyton Place," I would have loved to have enjoyed watching "Dallas" with my grandmother. But, sadly, she was out of it by the time that the show first showed up on CBS for its first seasons. I can just imagine sitting around with her speculating on all the possible shooters of J.R. Ewing.

But, as the passage of time and life would have it, I did all that talking with my friends. Indeed, I got turned onto "Dallas" by Djinn from the Bronx, who could very easily shift between some very deep and thoughtful poetry and this outlandish eye candy/junk. Because as a prototype for the latter, "Dallas" was the best. It was stupid. It was laughable. It frequently made no sense.

It was the perfect entertainment. Primarily because the expert cast knew how to play it. All the drama was done tongue-in-cheek. We got the joke because Larry Hagman, Linda Gray, and company got the joke.

For about six seasons, "Dallas" was the number one show in the nation.

Rarely do we all get to experience a national phenomenon together and this certainly was one. Everybody talked about it for an hour before the Friday night airing. Then, everybody would talk about it immediately after. Then the weekly cycle started all over again. Of course, all the frenzy got even more manic when the producers decided to have the villain J.R. shot by an unknown assailant during one season's final episode. All summer long, the shooter's identity was debated worldwide. And in all the circles around me. On the night of the big reveal, I actually had one of my first dinner parties and we all gathered around the TV for the big letdown. Here's the historic moment one more time.

I was always amused by the press on how the producers kept this all a big secret from the cast. They allegedly didn't see the script for this scene until minutes before filming. Everyone was holding their breath thinking they would be out of jobs. Blah, blah, blah. All hogwash. Knowing a bit about the TV production world now, there is no way they could have hid this, given that lawyers needed to work on Mary Crosby's out clause, etc.. Besides, there are scenes in subsequent episodes that subsequently discuss Kristin as the shooter. All filmed in advance. Here's a word of inside advice: when you read that shows are shooting multiple scenes to hide big secrets, they really aren't. It would be too expensive.

Nevertheless, it was all great fun for the audience. Of course, like any national fad, "Dallas" did wind itself down. The aborted season of shows, as erased by Victoria Principal's crazy nocturnal imagination, was pretty much the final nail in the casket. For some reason, I hung in with the show longer than all of my friends. I even lasted through a year where they desperately employed Susan Lucci, who is arguably the worst actress ever to appear on a TV screen anywhere. I have no clue why I did. I certainly had better ways to waste time. I suppose I didn't want to desert an old friend. Oddly enough, there have been friends I have cut loose a lot quicker.

And that is a story for another entry. In the true spirit of the continuing drama, you'll just have to tune in next week.

Executive Producer: Philip Capice.

Regular blog readers will remember that I actually took a tour of the Southfork Ranch several years ago.  These days, it's back to use again as a TV production set.  Today, it's the site of one of several memorial services for Larry Hagman.

So, another TV legend passes and I use my Sunday Memory Drawer to share one last time their work and their impact.  And, heck, I totally forgot to mention "I Dream of Jeannie."

Oh, well, that will be for another week or year.  Barbara Eden is still with us.

Dinner last night:  Bacon cheeseburger at the Arclight.