Rest in Peace J.R.

Larry Hagman passed away yesterday.

I grew up as a kid watching reruns of “I Dream of Jeannie” .

While in Junior High School, a nighttime Drama called “DALLAS” started airing. My parents watched it, and in the era of most houses only having one TV, I watched it as well.

Of course, Larry Hagman played J.R. Ewing, one of the most conniving, greedy, and evil characters ever seen on TV. I could not believe it. Nice, goofy, and amiable Major Tony Nelson from “I Dream of Jeannie” was now an evil Oil Tycoon.

J.R. Ewing soon became my favorite TV Character.

In High School, I named my pet parakeet “J.R.” in his honor.

After High School, I went in the Air Force and was sent overseas to England for three years. I love the British people! They too loved J.R. and is clan! Although I only had about 4 channels on the TV, with a limited number of American shows, I was happy to find that “Dallas” was one of the highest-rated shows on British Television. Although the episodes were almost a year behind, I got to continue watching “J.R.” and his antics.

My next door neighbors in England were a lovely British Couple. They asked where I was from. I said “Oregon”. I got a blank stare from them. They asked if that was close to “New York”, “Hollywood” or “Dallas”?

Thanks to J.R. Ewing, Dallas had now worked it’s way into the common geographical knowledge of our country by residents of a foreign land.

In the early 1990′s, my wife and I moved to the Dallas area.

One of our first outings was to the famed “Southfork Ranch” featured on the TV show.

In recent years, we attended a free outdoor Contemporary Christian Music Concert at Southfork that attracted over 100,000 fans.

Just a few years ago, in the midst of my Autograph Collecting phase, I wrote to Larry Hagman. He was nice enough to send me a signed photo.

Larry Hagman was a rare actor who successfully managed to pull off the impossible task of becoming two iconic TV characters that were miles apart from each other, making you forget that the same actor had portrayed both characters. Major Tony Nelson becoming J.R. Ewing would be like George Costanza becoming Dexter Morgan the Serial Killer.

Larry Hagman passed away in Dallas at the age of 81 due to complications from his long battle with Cancer. His family was at his bedside, as was his on-screen wife and longtime friend Linda Gray.

He will be greatly missed.

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