Hagman book avoids making paybacks

SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- If Larry Hagman were writing his memoirs as J.R. Ewing Jr., his rascally character in the old TV soaper "Dallas," it would be loaded with recrimination against his enemies.

But Hagman isn't J.R. (tell that to those little old ladies who beat him over the head with their handbags for being so mean). And so his autobiography, "Hello Darlin': Tall (and Absolutely True) Tales about My Life" contains surprisingly little payback time.

"I didn't put anything in that I thought was going to hurt someone or compromise them in any way," he insists. "Not that I had too many of those things in my life."

The book, written with Todd Gold and published by Simon and Schuster, tells of drink and drugs, getting introduced to sex in a Mexican bordello, being so drunk at 18 that he was kicked out of the house by his mother, Broadway star Mary Martin, and of his escapades as the Mad Monk of Malibu.

Needed liver transplant

Hagman's madcap days ended in 1995 when he was diagnosed with acute cirrhosis of the liver, the result of a drinking habit that began when he was 14. It was also discovered that he had a malignant tumor on his liver. He was told that unless he had a transplant, he would die. After months of frantic waiting, a liver became available.

Hagman appears the picture of health, much younger than his 69 years. His nights in barrooms were exchanged for meetings with 12-step disciples. He swims regularly and works out in the gym. With his glasses and shiny pate he could pass for a college professor.

He was interviewed on a sunswept afternoon at his Santa Monica home, an aerie high above the Pacific surf with a 180-degree view of the coastline from Point Dume to Palos Verdes and to Catalina far out to sea. The place is decorated in high style by Larry's wife for 44 years, Swedish-born Maj.

Hagman got comfortable on a deep sofa and related some of the highlights and lowlights of his extraordinary life. He was born in Fort Worth, Texas, to Ben Hagman, a small-town lawyer, and a 17-year-old singing hopeful, Mary Martin. They divorced when the boy was young, and she went on to begin her dazzling career in New York. Larry spent his first 12 years in Texas and California with his grandmother. Then he lived for a year in Connecticut with his mother and her husband-manager, Richard Halliday.

"Richard and I didn't get along at all," Hagman recalled. "It was his turf, and he didn't want anybody else on it. The guy was an alcoholic and a speed freak; he was into amphetamine long before I ever heard of it."

When he told his mother of his ambition to be a cowboy, she sent him off to live with his father in Texas. On a hunting trip in Mexico, they visited a bar-brothel where the boy had his first exposure to sex. When he couldn't perform, he paid the woman $5 to say otherwise.