Hello Darlin' (22 page)

One day while I was playing croquet I got a call from
The Eagle Has Landed’s
production manager. Almost two weeks had passed since my last scene. He explained
that when they viewed the dailies, they discovered the summer’s heat had dried out
the blood in the capsule that was supposed to have burst on my forehead and they needed
to reshoot that little portion showing the bullet going between my eyes.

“This time, hopefully, you’ll bleed,” he said.

I returned for a few days, shot the scene, and got paid an extra week’s salary, which
I really needed after the horse races in Ireland.

*   *   *

Not long after I landed a part in
Mother, Jugs and Speed,
a big-budget comedy about rival ambulance companies that starred Raquel Welch. Raquel
had a reputation for being difficult, but I found her perfectly wonderful. She was
also perfectly wonderful to look at. The movie, which also starred Bill Cosby and
Harvey Keitel, started out funny,
but the second half was loaded with stupid killings that confused moviegoers, who
didn’t know if it was a comedy or an action picture.

Next I worked on
The Rhinemann Exchange,
a 1977 miniseries that shot in Mexico City, which wasn’t a great experience, but
then I had a wonderful time making
Checkered Flag,
a racing movie that shot on location in the Philippines, with Joe Don Baker and Susan
Sarandon. Susan was a sensational person, as she’s repeatedly proved over the years.
I also became friendly with racing great Parnelli Jones, who had a small part as himself
and served as the technical adviser.

Retired from driving, he owned a car that was running in the Indianapolis 500 just
a few weeks later. When he finished his work on the film, he asked if I wanted to
be his guest at the race and serve as the grand marshal. Yeah, I jumped at the chance.
I loved parades, and this would be the biggest one I’d ever been in. But it meant
finishing the movie, flying to L.A. just long enough to pack, then catching a flight
to Indianapolis. Immediately after the race, I’d have to fly to London, where I was
supposed to start a movie. Maj planned to meet me in London with the kids. It was
a lot of travel, but it was worth it.

Needless to say, I landed in Indianapolis jet-lagged out of my mind. It was the day
before the race. I rode in the parade, waving to thousands of people from my perch
on the back of a convertible. Afterward I rode around on a Kawasaki minibike in the
pit area, meeting hundreds of people associated with the different cars and their
sponsors. I was having a great time. But according to Parnelli, the best part was
what happened in the infield, the grassy area inside the raceway.

“It starts at six o’clock in the morning,” he said. “They open the gates, shoot off
a cannon, and everybody races to stake out a spot on the infield. What they do is
get a coupla guys with motorcycles and they race ahead to claim territory for their
RVs, the place they’re going to spend the next eighteen hours. Its like the Oklahoma
Breaks, where everyone is racing to stake out land. Only instead of building a home
and planting a farm, they’re setting up an RV and getting shit-faced.”

“I’d like to see that,” I said, “but it’s past midnight and I’m so tired I just don’t
think I can make it.”

“You really have to see it,” another guy chimed in.

“Then I have to stay up all night, otherwise I’ll never wake up that early.”

Some guy overhearing the conversation offered me one of Keith Moons favorite pills.
But it was a first for me.

Pretty soon sleep was a nonissue.

At 6
A.M.
I was standing in the infield, surveying a long green straightaway covered by a low-lying
fog, and I was absolutely wired. Suddenly there was a boom and through the mist I
saw a line of RVs and motorcycles racing toward me. Realizing I would get creamed
if I stayed in that spot, I kick-started my minibike and took off in front of them.

I’d never seen anything as wild, but it got wilder once people began to drink—or whatever.
I spent the rest of the morning riding around, saying hi to people, accepting beers,
and having a blast. There was no slowing down. At one point, I encountered a circle
of RVs that was set up like a wagon train. They were end to end and you couldn’t get
in unless you went through one of them. Naturally, that made me curious.

Nosing around, I spotted a gorgeous young woman and said hello to her. When she realized
I was Larry Hagman from
I Dream of Jeannie,
she invited me inside.

Well, right in the middle of this grand American spectacle, I walked into a major
orgy. There must’ve been thirty to forty people fornicating in every conceivable position
known. I felt out of my depth and returned to the pits for the race. Parnelli had
been right, though. The 500 was exciting, but the real thrill was what happens in
the infield.

I
was fortunate I had enough of a name to get TV movies like
Intimate Strangers
and
Cry for Justice,
which allowed us to maintain our lifestyle, but just barely.

In fact, I was broke again when I bumped into Richard Donner, a friend from my earliest
days in Los Angeles who was about to establish himself as one of Hollywood’s top filmmakers.
When we saw each other, he’d just cast Christopher Reeve and Marlon Brando in
Superman,
his latest movie, and was about to leave for location.

“Hag, you want a job?” he asked.

“Does a bear shit in the woods?” I replied.

“I just saw you in
The Eagle Has Landed,
and it’ll be a snap for you. You’ll pick up some good dough. We’re going to be on
location in Banff for about a month or two, and I suspect I’ll need you up there for
probably three or four days.”

Those three or four days turned into about two weeks because of bad weather. But if
I was going to be rained in, I picked an entertaining group of people to be marooned
with. I wasn’t around Christopher
Reeve or Marlon Brando, which was too bad, though I can still boast of having been
in a film with both of them. And also Glenn Ford, Trevor Howard, and my old Screen
Gems boss Jackie Cooper; they were all part of the action. So was Margot Kidder. After
the movie, she moved out to Malibu and I got a call from her, asking if I knew a good
doctor.

“What’s the matter, honey?” I asked.

“I was riding a horse with a Western saddle,” she said. “It bucked me up and I landed
on the saddle horn. I think I broke my clitoris.”

“Oh, honey, I know just what to do,” I said and made a few calls before finding a
doctor who fixed her up.

I was a hero to her and advised her to ride English saddle from then on.

*   *   *

It was a Saturday night, and on most weekend nights there was a party for the cast
and crew on the hotel’s expansive balcony overlooking the grand Banff scenery. I filled
some plastic bags with powdered sugar and taped them up so they looked like another
powdery substance. They had the heft of a pound each. When I arrived at the party,
I waved them around like tins of caviar and said, “Hey, everyone, look what I just
got in the mail!”

People froze and stared, completely rapt and amazed. I specifically offered them to
Dick Donner, who ran in the opposite direction, and all I heard was him saying, “Uh,
no, no, no thanks.”

I gave chase, but then, in front of the whole company, I did one of those phony
I Dream of Jeannie
trips and let go of the bags. They flew over the parapet and exploded at the bottom,
about twenty feet below. The hundred or so people there rushed to the railing and
saw the ground blanketed with white powder. There were gasps and groans and cries
of “Oh my God!”

*   *   *

This first
Superman
was the classic story of the alien orphan sent to Earth from his dying planet. He
grows up and uses his superpowers to destroy evil. I played an army colonel in charge
of soldiers who were escorting an atomic-tipped missile. My scene revolved around
gorgeous Valerie Perrine faking a car accident in order to distract the military guards,
thereby creating a diversion that would allow her people to steal the missile.

One of my men spotted her lying in the road, unconscious but nonetheless provocative.

“There’s been an accident, sir,” he told me.

I assessed the situation myself and said, “I think she needs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation
and vigorous chest massage.”

With that, all the soldiers started to jump on her.

I called the men to attention, ordered them to do an about-face, and pompously said,
“I’m not going to have my men do anything I’m not prepared to do myself.”

Then
I
jumped on her.

We printed the first take, did the coverage except for my close-up, and then it started
to rain. It kept raining for five straight days. A week went by before Dick was able
to shoot outside again, which provided me with a desperately needed additional week’s
pay.

Finally I did my close-up and finished my part of the movie. I was ready to go home.
But a Canadian air controllers’ strike made it impossible to fly out of Canada. Valerie
and two of her girlfriends were in the same situation. I persuaded the production
company to furnish us with an RV and a driver to take the four of us to the airport
in Great Falls, Montana, where we could get a plane to L.A.

We set out at eight in the morning, driving through Banff National Park and drinking
champagne and enjoying the spectacular scenery. At one stop for food, I went searching
through my wallet for a credit card that wasn’t maxed out and a tiny little dot of
blue paper fell out. All of a sudden I remembered that years earlier I’d squirreled
away a tab of acid in case of an emergency. I told myself this long drive qualified
as one and swallowed it.

Awhile later, as we were driving by a beautiful mountain stream that emptied into
a large blue pool, I decided I had to go swimming. The driver stopped and I stripped
down to my Skivvies and dove in. The glacial water must’ve been thirty-five degrees,
but it didn’t make any difference to me because I was generating my own heat. I swam
around as if I were in a heated pool. I saw the girls and a bunch of other people
watching me from the bank and asking, “What the hell is that guy doing in there?”

I was talking to the trout.

Eventually I got back in the van and I continued having a great time on the road.
Mileage markers flew by, but when it got dark the driver said he needed to sleep before
we got in an accident. After he stopped, the wind started whistling through the RV.
It was freezing cold. The driver worried about carbon monoxide buildup and wouldn’t
leave the motor on to provide heat. We didn’t have any blankets. The girls pulled
their sweaters on, wrapped up in the curtains, and were fine. I was traveling light
and didn’t have much other than what I had on. In addition, I was coming down off
my acid trip.

Nobody offered to let me curl up with them and I decided to lie down on the floor.
A few hours later, with the nighttime temperature near freezing, I couldn’t stand
it any longer. I woke Valerie and asked if I could share her curtain with her. She
turned me down. Desperate, my teeth chattering, I turned to one of her girlfriends
and asked, “C-c-c-c-can I-I-I g-g-g-get in with you?”

She moved over and I curled up. Sex didn’t enter my mind. I just wanted to get warm.

The next morning the ground was covered with snow. Forgetting the fact that I’d nearly
frozen to death the night before, I was the first one to jump out and make snow angels.
Valerie laughed at my impulsiveness, then joined me, as did the other girls, in making
snow angels.

Finally, we made it to Great Falls. As we boarded the plane, I spotted
a large Indian chief headdress in a store. It cost $100.1 was down to my last $125
travel per diem. I had them hold the plane while I debated whether or not to spend
money I couldn’t afford to spend. I looked at that headdress and couldn’t resist.

Back in L.A., Maj was vaguely amused as I marched into the terminal wearing my new
headdress.

“I figured you’d come back in a hat like that,” she said.

*   *   *

It wasn’t much after that, just before Christmas 1977, that Maj and I went to see
Mother and Ethel Merman costar in a once-in-a-lifetime musical benefit for the New
York Public Library. We settled into a friends apartment on Central Park West. Lorimar
had sent over two scripts for me to look at. One was a sitcom, the other was a drama.
Before we got dressed for the theater, I started reading
The Waverly Wonders,
a half-hour comedy, which at that time I figured was my forte.

Maj went into another room with the second script. It was titled
Dallas,
and it laid out the story of two warring oil families in Texas, the Ewings and the
Barneses. After reading just two scenes, Maj let out a loud whoop and cried, “Larry,
this is it! We found it.”

She had me take a look, and after reading the first nine pages I knew she was right.

Dallas
was Romeo and Juliet set among the oil fields, except there wasn’t one likable character
in the entire episode. Not one nice person. For television at the time, that was a
real breakthrough. Mama was an old bitch. Daddy was an alcoholic asshole. My little
brother was a womanizer. And my character, J. R. Ewing, was a combination of all of
them.

“Mine’s not the main part, but I think I can go someplace with it,” I said.

“I think the show’s different enough to do well,” Maj said. “Everyone’s an antagonist.
It’s fun.”

Right then I called my agent and asked who else was involved. He
let it slip that Barbara Bel Geddes had been signed to play the mother. When I found
that out I knew the show was going to be a class act. She’d been one of my favorite
actresses for what seemed like all my life. I instructed my agent to make a deal.