Bits about Larry Hagman in newspapers and gossip columns from 1965, the start of I Dream of Jeannie until 1977, just before Dallas. Errors in spelling and other facts are left in, with corrections, comments and updates denoted by [ ].
2/6/1966
NEW YORK CAVALCADE
by Louis Sobol
. . .One costly scene in the picture, "The Group", in which Larry Hagman beats up Joanna Pettet, had to be reshot - because one eagle eye noticed too late there was a filter tip cigaret burning in an ash tray. There were no filters in 1933 - the period of the scene. . .
Cedar Rapids Gazette, Cedar Rapids, IA
3/15/1966
by Dick Kleiner
. . .All these stories about how the girls In "The Group" were having intramural fights all through the picture were new to Larry Hagman. "I got along with everybody," he says. "It never occurred to me that there were any problems. And then I found out that the girls were at each others throats." Hagman's prediction is that Candy Bergen, ultimately, will be the biggest star to emerge from "The Group." He says she is "beautiful, bright - and couldn't care less." As for Hagman's television show, I Dream of Jeannie, he's optimistic that there will be a second season, mostly because they filmed the last two shows in color. He doesn't think they would go to that trouble unless it was going to be renewed. Hagman is soing to spend his vacation studying film editing. He thinks that will make him a better actor. "I'm very ambitious now," he says. "I didn't used to be ambitious, but something changed me. What changed me was abject poverty.". . .
The Edwardsville Intelligencer, Edwardsville, IL
6/23/1967
SHOW BEAT
MONTREAL - (NEA) - Memories of a promotion junket to Expo 67, involving Hollywood television stars, Screen Gems, Air Canada and several Canadian governmental branches tend to flow together. After a week of banquets buses and bagpipes, here are some observations culled at random from champagne-stained notes:
At Expo 67: Larry Hagman shooting movies and trying to get Sally Field to smile pretty. But she stuck her fingers in the corners of her mouth, pulled out and down and Hagman turned and walked away. . . .
. . .In Toronto, at a big banquet: Hayden Rorke (the psychiatrist on I Dream of Jennie) signing an autograph - on the bagpipe drummer's drum. . . .
. . .At Expo 67, touring the handsome but disappointing U.S. pavilion - A tourist came up to Hagman and said. "I know you. Aren't you on TV?" "Yeah," said Hagman, "I'm the guy with the broad in the bottle.". . .
The Danville Register, Danville, VA
3/10/1968
TV SHORTS
Larry Hagman, star of NBC-TV's "I Dream of Jeannie," came up with a surefire way of making everything look rosy when he gets up in the morning. He had a pair of prescription sunglasses made that are tinted a rich pink shade. Says Larry, "now I can always look at the world through rose-colored glasses."
Gastonia Gazette, Gastonia, NC
9/1/1968
THE TV SCENE
by Barney Glazer
Larry Hagman donates 10 percent of his annual salary to teen-agers who would have been compelled to leave school to support their families.
The Press-Courier, Oxnard, CA
6/8/1969
Hollywood, CA - Burgess Meredith has almost finished "There Was a Crooked man." . . . After that, Meredith zips back to New York to direct an off-Broadway musical and then he zips out to Hong Kong to direct and act in a movie called (tentatively) "Touch and Go." Meredith likes Hong Kong and, perhaps because of that, we were eating in a Chinese restaurant.
Larry Hagman, another Chinese food aficionado (to mix a geographical expression), dropped in and joined him. He was wearing a railroader's overalls, a hat with a feather, beads, a Signal Corps insignia and rose - colored glasses. Hagman had just bought a 50-foot drum, shaped like a dragon, which he plans to install on the flat roof of his Malibu home. "You must have a dull roof as it is," Meredith said. "Yeah," said Hagman. "all my friends say the only flaw in my character is my dull roof."
Avalanche-Journal, Lubbock, TX
2/15/1969
L. HAGMAN: ACTOR 'INVOLVED'
Larry Hagman has felt the need to become ..."involved." He now teaches acting two nights a week in Watts and is involved two days a week with a group that tries to help drug addicts and their families communicate and kick the habit. . . .
. . .Hagman no longer worries about the next buck or how to pay the bills. In fact, he recently bought a $115,000 beach house in Malibu. . . His wife is supervising the remodeling of the place and Larry is filming the progress. "We're tearing the house down gradually piece by piece and rebuilding,"he said. "But we're in no rush." . . .
. . .Larry's new involvements serve as an antidote to that restless feeling. "All the charts indicate that middle class whites fall apart in their 30s when they've achieved, what they've set about, are stuck with it and start screaming that it's not what they thought it would be," said Hagman. "Suddenly, for me, the money started coming in and I didn't know how or what to. You start falling apart. Now I'm filling my time in a more positive manner. I think about how I can make it all worthwhile."
Every weekend the Hagmans have a bonfire on the beach, made from the discarded lumber of their house. "The bonfire attracts all kinds of interesting people," said Larry. "We don't plan our weekend, We just let it happen."
San Mateo Times, San Mateo, CA
3/5/1970
HOLLYWOOD HOTLINE
by Marilyn Beck
If Larry Hagman can get his "super-camper" off the design boards and into an actual running model, he and wife Maj and the kids will set off for the great outdoors. Last year, in a rather conventional camper, they covered some 11,000 miles of country.
The "I Dream of Jeannie" co-star isn't tipping, what's going to be so different about the new buggy he's got planned, but knowing him it'll have to be far-out. Could be it'll even include a scaled-down version of the 6X6 tub that's a feature of the Hagman Malibu home, where family and friends regularly go skinny dipping. It would prove quite a sensation among the trailer park circuit, I imagine.
The Star-News, Pasadena, CA
9/13/1970
TWO STARS SIGN AS SERIES GUESTS
by Marilyn Beck
HOLLYWOOD - Barbara Anderson and Larry Hagman have been set for guest-starring role's in the "To Get Through the Night" episode of Universal Television's "Marcus Welby, M.D.," starring Robert Young in the title role. Miss Anderson,-who stars in the studio's "Ironside" series, portrays a young and beautiful woman whose unhappiness with her life drives her to attempted suicide, while Hagman plays a young psychiatrist who discovers he has an incurable and terminal disease.
"Marcus Welby, M.D." also stars James Brolin as Young's associate and Elena Verdugo as their nurse. It airs Tuesdays over the ABC television network.
Fresno Bee Republican, Fresno, CA
10/3/1970
When Larry Hagman finishes his role in the TV four-hour movie, "Vanished" he's due to sail around the world with Peter Fonda in the sailing vessel they bought together. They plan to take their wives and kids, too, we're told.
The Derrick, Oil City, PA
4/4/1971
MOVIE STAR AVALANCHE ON TV SLATED THIS FALL
by Vernon Scott
. . .If the name Larry Hagman is new to you, his face very probably is not. He was the costar of "I Dream of Jeannie" and will shine once again in "The Good Life" this autumn. . .
The Lowell Sun, Lowell, MA
6/3/1971
TV/HOLLYWOOD LINE
by Marilyn Beck
. . .They keep dreaming up so many fancy awards in Hollywood you really have to go out of your way to invent a different one. And Larry Hagman's done just that. He calls it "The Larry Hagman Keep Acting Award," and it's nothing that will excite the hard drinkers around. Larry says the honors would go to the best actor or actress of the year with the greatest need. "I would give them money, but not in cash, it would go to a grocery store or food chain, and every month the winner could charge $100 worth of food. No booze. Just food." Larry has had this idea for quite a while, but hasn't done anything about it. Now that he has signed such a sweet contract with NBC for his fall-debuting "The Good Life" series, maybe he thinks he can afford to make his food only donation. . .
The San Antonio Express, San Antonio, TX
6/28/1971
SCREENINGS
by Bob Foster
It used to be that the daytime soap opera dramas were considered to be training grounds for young talent. Last week my friend Larry Hagman, a three year alumni of soap operas, credited the shows with teaching him a lot "They don't teach completely, but they do give you great training in remembering lines, in improvising and with your timing," he said. . .
The San Mateo Times, San Mateo, CA
7/21/1971
HOLLYWOOD HOTLINE
by Marilyn Beck
. . .Larry Hagman is doing his bit to foster nepotism here in Hollywood. "If you don't get your friends and relatives in the key spots," Mary Martin's son told me, "someone else will get theirs in those positions anyway." Larry has gotten there first with his gang over at the Screen Gems sound stage where his new NBC "Good Life" series is shooting. His wife's sister. Lillemore Chang, has a job as Donna Mills' stand-in. His 13-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son will do extra work when school chores allow. And Larry was instrumental in getting his longtime buddy David Wayne the berth as a "Good Life" co-star. "It wasn't a matter ot my having to talk Screen Gems into hiring David," Larry pointed out. "We had to convince David to do a TV series. He's one of the finest actors in the world." . . .
The Star-News, Pasadena, CA
10/3/1971
WEIRDO ON HIS OWN TIME
by Vernon Scott
Larry Hagman, that nice Air Force major on "I Dream of Jeannie," is a nice weirdo on his own time. Hagman surpasses being eccentric. The other day he sat in the patio of his favorite Chinese restaurant playing a bamboo flute. Other patrons watched with suspicion. He was dressed - as usual - in a Kit-Carson fringed jacket, an immense white stetson hat, ostrich skin boots (yellow) and carried a purse.
His Swedish-born wife, Maj, smiled approvingly when be dumped the contents of his purse on the table. It held a pair of moccasins, electric shaver, box of snuff, a tape recorder - complete with beaded handbag containing an ear plug - a dime "for an emergency telephone call in case I'm arrested," and a corkscrew. He carries a full size shepherd's crook but he quit packing the gun. "I carried a .25-caliber pistol all the time because I'm from Texas and I got into the habit," Hagman said, apparently on the level. "But I became paranoid. So I spent a couple of years in analysis and quit packing the gun. Now I'm opposed to violence, I won't have a fight or shout at anyone on camera. "There's so much violence around us I want no part of it."
Hagman, who is Mary Martin's son, is a ruggedly built six-footer who photographs younger and smaller on the television screen. "I'm 39 years eld and weigh 200 pounds," he said. "But I look 20 years old on television, which is good I guess. "I see mother once every year or two. I suppose that's enough as far as she's concerned." Hagman is a good-natured man who drinks a bottle of wine with lunch, eats a great deal and discourses on any subject that enters his mind, sprinkling his dialogue with pithy language.
"When 'Jeannie' went off the air after five years I decided to say yes to everything that was offered me. So I did three movies and a lot of television shows." Hagman lives at Malibu and is proud of a special bathtub at home with jets that fire 115-degree water at as many, as six occupants at a time. ''Communal baths, like in old Rome," he said. "Then we tun right into the cold ocean. It's great." Maj nodded her approval, Hagman reached for his snuff, sprinkled some on the back of his hand and inhaled deeply into each nostril. His eyes watered and his nose turned red. "Wow!" he cried. "That's great." He gave some to Maj who followed suit but then went into a sneezing fit Hagman now stars In "The Good Life" for NBC. The title is as suitable as the actor could ask."
The Independent Press-Telegram, Long Beach CA
10/16/1971
LARRY HAGMAN
by Ruth Thompson
. . .He really is as whimsical as the befuddled astronaut he used to play in "I Dream of Jeannie" and the butler he's now being in "The Good Life." (NBC, Saturday nights, 8:30 to 9). A truly gentle man. . .
. . .Larry himself serves as the technical expert on buttling. Unlike most of the writers, he grew up in a household with servants. "My mother has had the same butler for, I guess, 27 years. And it's not the way you'd think, making them pick even the handkerchief you drop. You get yery protective trying to spare them work." . . .
. . .He daily outwits his allergy to sun to live an outdoor life at Malibu Beach with his Swedish wife of 18 years, Maj Axelsson and their two kids, Heidi, 13 and Preston, nine. Larry's day starts at 5:30 a.m. with a run on the beach, maybe a game of Frisbee, and his Soufi exercise regime. "Like Yoga, but without the pain." All the while he's muffled by a floppy white felt hat, "Shows I'm a good guy," and a white karate jacket. "Lets you exercise freely while covering everything except the legs, which, for some reason, can take the sun.". . .
The Star-News, Pasadena, CA
12/2/1971
TV SCOUT
by Dick Kleiner
There may be more prestige in making movies than in making TV, but there's more money in TV - if you hit a hot series. Larry Hagman had one hot one - I Dream of Jeannie - and a cold one - the recently cancelled The Good Life. And he says today's successful TV stars make more money than the big stars of movies in'the past - people like Gable and Cooper and Bogart. "They never made more than $5000 a week," Hagman says, and the implication is clear - he does.
The Abilene Reporter-News, Abilene, TX
