Hello Darlin' (28 page)

In 1988, the show’s tenth season, Priscilla continued the exodus when she left to
take over the operation of Graceland. A few years earlier, she’d thought about leaving
and asked me to lunch to get my input. After talking over all the angles, including
how chilly it had gotten for Patrick, I said that whatever she decided was fine, but
the bottom line was that, selfishly, I liked having her around. Priscilla stayed that
time. When she finally did leave, it was for the right reasons and things turned out
great for her.

M
idway through 1989, Linda announced she was leaving. Sue Ellen and J.R. had been divorced,
and she felt her character wasn’t being developed in a way that challenged her after
so many years. Katzman controlled the story lines, and he kept writing Sue Ellen as
a beleaguered woman. He wasn’t going to change. She got sick and tired of it, and
rightly so. Still, I don’t know how many dinner parties I had where I begged her not
to go. I would’ve used every bit of my clout if she wanted to stay, but in the end
I reluctantly understood.

At least Linda was with us when we shot several episodes on location in Europe. It
was a Katzman extravaganza designed to inject new interest in the show. The professional
terminology is “ratings stunt.” But in reality, viewers don’t care about locales no
matter how exotic. It’s similar to why they never bothered to analyze why J.R., a
guy worth a couple of hundred million, still shared a home with his parents. People
want to turn on their sets and forget what happened at work that day.

But none of us argued against a European itinerary that included
Salzburg, Vienna, and Moscow.
Dallas
epitomized American capitalism, and taking it to the center of communism only nine
months before the Berlin Wall came down was a bold stroke that signaled the good guys
had won.

We had a terrific time in Salzburg and Vienna, two magnificent cities, but Moscow
left a lot to be desired. Maj and I had been to Moscow a few years earlier as part
of a tour through Japan, China, and the Soviet Union. Like most Americans, I’d spent
all my life fearful of the Soviet Union. But that fear vanished after we’d spent time
there. Nothing worked, nothing could be fixed. I knew if they ever pushed the button
to send up their missiles, they’d most likely blow themselves to kingdom come.

So when we went with
Dallas,
I told everyone to bring oranges, cheese, cookies, toilet paper, and anything else
they might want or need because they sure as hell wouldn’t find it over there. If
any of my cast mates had thoughts about checking into a comfortable hotel, they vanished
when we were let off in front of a plain four-story building and told we’d have to
carry our luggage up four flights to our rooms. Hearing that, I went straight to the
concierge, who told me the elevators hadn’t worked for three years.

“But we have parts coming from Czechoslovakia,” he said. “They will be here in two
years.”

I had five bags, containing all my costumes. An older man who looked to be in his
eighties spent about an hour and a half carrying them up to our room. By his third
trip, he was panting, sweating, and looking like he might have a heart attack before
he finished. But I was so pissed off about our accommodations that I let him suffer
the first round because I was sure my turn was next. Sheree’s fiancé, Paul Rubio,
walked around the lobby waving his American Express card while asking, “Where can
we find a hotel that works?”

“There isn’t one,” the concierge said.

“What about one where we can get a drink?”

“I can help you out there,” I said.

I’d stayed at the National Hotel and knew they had a bar that served alcohol, the
choice being Heineken or straight shots of vodka. Without hesitating, the whole group
piled into our bus and I treated drinks at the bar. Then everybody spread out to look
for better places to stay. Despite the effort, our conditions didn’t improve.

One of the producers we hired locally to grease the palms of Soviet officials invited
us to his home, a dacha outside the city. One look at it confirmed my suspicion—he
had to be Russian mafia. In Moscow, the poor people, meaning just about everyone,
lived in run-down apartment buildings, and the few rich people had apartments only
slightly less run-down. When a neurosurgeon earns only slightly more than a street
cleaner, there’s no incentive to do anything.

But our local producer was proof that crime paid. He owned a two-story modern home
that looked straight out of California. It was furnished with new appliances, televisions,
VCRs, and enough champagne and caviar to make us feel we were back at the Mansion
in Dallas.

Because the only way anyone in the country could’ve seen
Dallas
was on black-market videotapes, I walked around the city unrecognized. It felt great
to be anonymous again. I walked leisurely through museums and churches without being
stopped once for an autograph. All of us actors remarked on a similar experience.
But then we ran into a group of East German tourists who picked up television signals
from West Germany, and they were fanatical
Dallas
fans. Our guide, a pretty little girl, had no idea why four hundred people suddenly
went nuts seeing us. She asked them to stop, but they ignored her.

“That’s J.R.!” they screamed. “J.R., we love you!”

Our guide didn’t understand and called for security.

“But you’re just an actor,” she kept saying.

I couldn’t begin to explain the reach of television to someone who’d never seen it
the way we knew it in America, and as for a phenomenon like
Dallas,
forget it. She couldn’t have understood.

Nine months later, I watched CNN’s coverage of the Berlin Wall
being torn down and realized that
Dallas
had impacted that side of the world. Pop music also had an effect, but ideas combined
with pictures were even more powerful. Every time people in Hungary, Poland, and East
Germany watched
Dallas,
they saw what they didn’t have—the beautiful clothes, the big homes, the abundant
food, and the lifestyle. Eventually, enough people began to say, “Wait a minute, I
want that stuff too! And why don’t we have it?”

I honestly believe that as
Dallas
crossed the borders into Soviet-controlled countries, it played a big part in the
downfall of the Soviet empire. When the people from the Eastern bloc countries saw
what they were missing, they realized what a farce communism was.

*   *   *

My mother, happily retired for years in Palm Springs, never complained about her aches
and pains, even after her car accident. But in 1989 she suffered from back pain so
severe she didn’t have to complain. It was obvious. We took her to a renowned sports
doctor in L.A. After a series of tests, including X rays, he asked if she had an internist.
Maj and I exchanged looks. Clearly his question meant her problem was more serious
than a backache, and it was.

Upon further examination, Mother was diagnosed with colon cancer. She checked into
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where Dr. Leonard Makowka performed a three-hour surgery.
It was his first operation at the renowned hospital. Five years later, purely by fate,
I’d be his last operation there.

Meanwhile, despite the surgery, Mother’s prognosis wasn’t good. Dr. Makowka found
the cancer had metastasized. I visited daily, until she returned home to Palm Springs.
Then we did what we could for as long as we could. She spent her final days at Eisenhower
Memorial in Rancho Mirage.

The last time I saw Mother was on a Sunday, the day of the week when I didn’t utter
a sound. Mother was used to that habit of mine. Fortunately, the important stuff between
us had already been said
years before. She’d let us know she was grateful that her children had given her
a second chance to be close to them, and she knew that we felt the same way about
her.

When I walked into her hospital room a prominent television pastor was sitting on
her bed, holding her hand and praying for her. His regular visits had started to concern
me. Call me cynical. I’m from the South, and every pastor I’d ever met while growing
up made deathbed visits in an effort to get their church “remembered.” I made sure
Mother didn’t remember his church at all.

After he left, we had a wonderful visit. She’d never liked Bach, yet she knew I enjoyed
whistling Bach inventions. So she started whistling one of my favorites. I did counterpoint.
We whistled while holding hands until she grew too tired. I sat for a while longer,
then kissed her good-bye.

She passed away the next day. That was on a Monday. I arranged to have her cremated,
told Maj that I would pick up the ashes at the Palm Springs mortuary, and we planned
a burial on Saturday in the family plot in Weatherford.

Meanwhile, that week I was directing an episode of
Dallas
on the Irvine ranch a couple hours south of L.A. It was a complicated week. I had
a herd of a thousand head of cattle to move around as we shot. There were also horses,
wranglers, a chuck wagon, and all the paraphernalia of a roundup. Plus I was acting
in every scene. Then on Thursday night, at the last minute, the shooting schedule
was changed and I was handed ten pages of additional dialogue I had to learn by the
next morning.

Exhausted, I stripped naked and walked around my hotel room with all the windows open
to keep myself awake while studying the script. I made it until sunrise. The telephone
rang. It was Maj, who was in a panic because she hadn’t received the ashes. I was
supposed to have had them sent to Malibu. But I’d forgotten. I’d also left the note
with the mortuary’s address and phone number on my desk in Malibu,
and I was afraid to ask Maj to get them. We were leaving the next day for Weatherford.

“Where are the ashes, Larry?”

I calmly said I’d call the mortuary and have them delivered to me on location and
bring them to Malibu myself.

There was a knock on the door just in time.

It was Patrick, telling me it was time to go to work. I turned to him and he saw the
fear in my eyes.

“Hey, you’ve got to help me on this thing,” I said.

Both of us phoned mortuaries in Palm Springs until I found the right one. I’ll never
forget saying, “Hello … Larry Hagman here. Do you have my mother’s ashes there?” Neither
will I forget the man’s response. “Yes, as a matter of fact Mr. Weasel is just walking
out the door with them. He’s going to mail them to you.”

I suddenly recalled a plan to mail them, which I obviously screwed up. But something
else got my attention.

“Who’s going to mail them?” I asked.

“Mr. Weasel.”

I started to laugh. Punch-drunk from sleep deprivation and anxiety, I thought that
was the funniest thing in the world. I turned to Patrick and told him that Mr. Weasel
had my mother’s ashes. He cracked up too. Then Mr. Weasel got on the phone. I said,
“Mr. Weasel, do you have my mother’s ashes?” That put both of us on the floor. “Yes,
I do,” he said, unaware there were two men on the other end writhing in hysterical
laughter.

“I was waiting for instructions on what to do with them and decided I better mail
them to you.”

I was laughing so hard I couldn’t speak. He thought I was crying.

“I’m sorry you’re taking this so hard,” he said.

“I’ll be all right,” I said.

We arranged for a
Dallas
company car to pick them up and they reached the set about 4
P.M.
I took them to Malibu without telling
Maj about my lapse in memory or revealing the different scenarios that had run through
my head if I hadn’t been able to get them, including using the ashes from the chuck
wagon fire on the set and then sneaking back to Weatherford to bury Mother properly
without anyone knowing the truth. Fortunately none of that had to happen.

Early the next morning we flew to Weatherford. The whole family, including Heller
and her husband, Bromley, and all her kids, met there and we had a tearful good-bye.
Many of Mother’s old friends spoke. We put pictures of the family in her ashes. I
included a photo of Linda Gray, who Mother adored. And Heller added a miniature bottle
of Kahlúa, her favorite drink. It was a fitting memorial to a life well lived.

That experience started me thinking about my own burial. I want to be ground up in
one of those chippers, the kind they used in the movie
Fargo,
and spread across a field and plowed under. Then I want the field planted with wheat
that would be made into flour and used to bake a huge cake. A year after my passing,
my friends would be invited to a big party and they’d get a piece of me. And every
year I’d come back again.

*   *   *

Early in 1991 I took Patrick up to a fishing camp a friend of mine owned outside of
Medford, Oregon. It was a classic old lodge on 162 wooded acres along the Rogue River.
Maj and I had been going there two or three times a year for ten years, fishing for
salmon and steel-head.

The first time I’d taken Patrick there we’d limited out. It was unbelievable fishing.
Just as we were about to take the boat out of the river, he’d reeled in a fourteen-and-a-half-pounder.
None of the fish we caught had been under eight pounds.

This was another special trip. While we were there, my friend who owned the camp called
and mentioned that he was interested in selling the place. He wanted slightly more
than a million dollars. I knew
Dallas
was likely to be canceled at the end of the season and didn’t want to spend that
kind of money when I had other expenses. It took me about two seconds to convince
Patrick to buy it. I figured I’d sponge off him anyway.

After Patrick and his family moved in, I asked him to send me the rod and tackle I
kept there. I needed it for a trip. I told him exactly where I kept it.

“The one in the closet?” he asked.