Fly your eyebrows at half-mast out of respect today: Dallas star Larry Hagman has died.
Larry Hagman, whose portrayal of one of television’s most beloved villains, J.R. Ewing, led the CBS series Dallas to enormous world popularity, died Friday in Dallas, where Mr. Hagman had been filming the sequel to his famous show. He was 81. The death occurred at a hospital at 4:20 p.m., and was caused by complications arising from cancer, his family said in a statement. (Via)
Dallas was before my time, so I know little about it, other than Hagman played oil baron J.R. Ewing, who was shot in a two-part episode that led to a great Simpsons spoof many years later, and that he was once one of the biggest TV stars in the world. (Hagman’s also in the Dallas revival on TNT, which “is midway in production on Season 2 and this sad news will be incorporated into the storyline.”) I’m more familiar with the actor from his other big role, though, as Captain-turned-Major Anthony Nelson on I Dream of Jeannie, which TV Land airs approximately 17 episodes of every day. But he seemed like an awesome dude: according to the NY Times, he “traveled the world handing out fake $100 bills with his face on them,” and was introduced to LSD and marijuana by David Crosby and Jack Nicholson. Hagman also starred in Mother, Jugs, & Speed, which, yes.
But it all comes back to those eyebrows, which Danger once wrote an entire post about. The world is a more depressing, less bushy place without them. If Peter Gallagher goes next, may God have mercy on us all.
