Beth and I started to watch the new generation of Dallas earlier this year and from episode one we were hooked. Originally the idea was for the original characters to be more in the background. But no one gets in front of JR.
This is a great article on it. I really love what Linda Gray said about meeting him on the set for the first time.
Larry Hagman as J.R.: A TV villain for all ages
NEW YORK — One reason “Dallas” became a cultural phenomenon like none other is that Larry Hagman never took its magnitude for granted.
During an interview last June, he spoke of returning to Dallas and the real-life Southfork Ranch some months earlier to resume his role of J.R. Ewing for the TNT network’s revival of the series. There at Southfork, now a major tourist attraction, he came upon a wall-size family tree diagramming the entanglement of “Dallas” characters.
“I looked at it and said ‘I didn’t know I was related to HER!”’ Hagman marveled. “And I didn’t know THAT!”
In its own way, the original “Dallas” — which aired on CBS from 1978 to 1991 — was unfathomably bigger than anything on TV before or since, while J.R. Ewing remains unrivaled not just as a video villain but as a towering mythical figure.
All this is largely thanks to Hagman and his epic portrayal of J.R., a Texas oilman and patriarch who, in Hagman’s hands, was in equal measures loathsome and lovable.
Hagman, who died Friday at 81, certainly had nothing more to prove a quarter-century ago when “Dallas” ended after 14 seasons...
...As J.R., Hagman could marshal piercing glances with his hawk-like eyes, and chill any onlooker with his wicked grin. There was no depth to which J.R. couldn’t sink, especially with the outrageous story lines the series blessed him with.
But his popularity exceeded that for even a notable bad guy. This, too, is a credit to Hagman’s portrayal. By all indications, the glorious rascalness that made J.R. such fun to watch was lifted intact from Hagman’s own lively personality.
During last June’s lunch interview with Hagman and Linda Gray (J.R.’s long-suffering onetime wife, Sue Ellen), Gray recalled the day the “Dallas” cast first met.
“He walks in, this man with a cowboy hat,” said Gray, “and I thought, ‘What’s this?’ To me, he was still the astronaut from ‘I Dream of Jeannie.’ Then he looked at me and he went, ‘Hello, darlin’.’ And that was it: I thought, Oh, darn, this is gonna be fun.”
“She THREW herself at me!” Hagman broke in. “She’d had a couple of glasses of champagne already, and she put her arms around me and said, ‘I’m your WIFE!”’
“Where do you come up with these stories?” Gray, laughing, fired back at the man she would describe at his passing months later as “my best friend for 35 years.”
What made J.R. irresistible, and always forgivable, was his high-spiritedness, his love of the game. Despite the legendary fortune of the Ewings, J.R. didn’t flaunt his wealth. (Southfork was comfortable all right, but not ostentatious....J.R. savored power, not things. He loved doing to others before they did it to him, and he usually succeeded.
Operating with such diabolical zest, J.R. appalled viewers, yet they always rooted for him. And relied on him to prevail. Back in 1980, they played an obsessive guessing game of Who Shot J.R.? But no one for a moment imagined he would die.
This makes Hagman’s passing difficult for fans to comprehend. And it raises an obvious question: During the new season of TNT’s “Dallas,” which begins Jan. 28, will J.R. have to die?
On some level, his fate seems unavoidable. But for viewers who have hate-loved J.R. for decades, there’s a different answer: Thanks to Larry Hagman, J.R. is forever.
A good friend of mine, when I asked if he watch the new Dallas, said dismissively "Mike, you're watching a soap opera." True, but it was a great one.
RIP Larry Hagman. Trust me, this is worth ten minutes of your time. The best one liners of JR Ewing.
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