Larry Hagman

In 1954, Hagman got married to Swedish designer, Maj Axelsson. They have two children: a daughter, Heidi Kristina, and a son, Preston. The family had their home in Malibu, California, but later moved to Ojai. Maj Hagman was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2008. She died in 2016.

Hagman was a member of ‘Peace and Freedom Party.’ His friend Jack Nicholson introduced him to marijuana. Hagman was a known supporter of using marijuana as a better alternative to alcohol.

Larry Hagman was actively involved in philanthropic activities. He was a strict non-smoker and acted as the Chairperson of ‘Great American Smokeout,’ organized by ‘American Cancer Society,’ from 1981 to 1992. He was also an advocate of organ donation. A year after his liver transplant, Hagman served as the National Spokesperson for 1996 ‘US Transplant Games’ presented by ‘National Kidney Foundation.’ He was honored with an award for the efforts he took to increase public awareness about organ donation.

Larry was born on September 21, 1931, in Fort Worth, Texas, to Mary Martin and Benjamin Jackson Hagman. His mother was a ‘Broadway’ actor, and his father was an accountant and a lawyer.

After his parents divorced, Larry spent most of his time with his grandmother. His mother worked as a contract player with ‘Paramount.’ His mother married Richard Halliday in 1940, and Larry moved in with her.

After the birth of his stepsister in 1941, Larry’s mother moved to New York to focus on her career as an actor. Larry had to move to California with his grandmother again.

His mother gave a lot of auditions, which earned her the nick name ‘Audition Mary.’ While his mother was busy with her career as an actor, Larry attended a military school, the ‘Black-Foxe Military Institute.’

After the death of his grandmother, Larry moved in with his mother in New York. Eventually, he went back to his hometown in 1946.

Larry’s first acting stint was with Margaret Webster’s school productions at ‘The Woodstock Playhouse’ in New York. He had a small role in ‘The Taming of the Shrew.’

While at the ‘Bard College’ in New York, Larry found time to work as a production assistant and did small roles with Margo Jones’s theater company.

In 1952, he had to take a break to serve in the ‘US Air Force.’ After his service, he went back to New York to focus on his career.

He started with performing at stage plays and indulged in a lot of theater work. He appeared in ‘Once Around the Block,’ an ‘Off-Broadway’ play.

Larry made his ‘Broadway’ debut with ‘Comes a Day,’ in 1958. His interest in ‘Broadway’ was proved by his appearances in plays such as ‘God and Kate Murphy,’ ‘The Nervous Set,’ and ‘The Beauty Part.’

Apart from working on ‘Broadway’ plays, Larry developed a keen interest in TV. He made his first TV appearance in the crime drama ‘Decoy’ in 1957.

He appeared in a number of shows such as ‘Harbormaster’ (1958), ‘Sea Hunt’ (1958), ‘Diagnosis: Unknown’ (1960), and ‘The Defenders’ (1961). He had a major breakthrough with the 1965 sitcom ‘I Dream of Jeannie,’ where he played ‘Major Anthony Nelson,’ a friendly man who finds a bottle with ‘Jeannie’ (played by Barbara Eden) inside it.

‘I Dream of Jeannie’ gave Larry’s career the much-needed boost. He was also part of the movies ‘I Dream of Jeannie: 15 Years Later,’ released in 1985, and ‘I Still Dream of Jeannie,’ released in 1991.

Larry became a well-known face on American TV and continued making appearances in TV shows such as ‘The Good Life’ (1971), ‘Here We Go Again’ (1973), ‘Ellery Queen’ (1975), and ‘The Rockford Files’ (1977), before he played the role of the evil businessman ‘J. R Ewing’ in the hugely successful TV show ‘Dallas’.