DALLAS INTERVIEWS

LINDA GRAY AND LARRY HAGMAN

Larry King Live
Larry Hagman and Linda Gray Share Their Memories of 'Dallas'
Aired June 20, 2000 - 9:00 p.m. ET

LARRY KING, HOST: Tonight, they were America's favorite dysfunctional couple on the smash hit "Dallas": Linda Gray and Larry Hagman, Sue Ellen and J.R. Ewing, they're back, together again. We'll take your calls, next on LARRY KING LIVE.

One of the most amazing success stories in American television history, the series "Dallas," which went on forever, and starred our two guests tonight, Larry Hagman and Linda Gray. Well, back together again, if you're lucky enough to be in California, in the play "Murder in the First," a play directed by Linda Gray and staring Larry Hagman, although it's sporadic, right? You're out of it for a week, you're back in it, right?

LINDA GRAY, ACTRESS: No he's out. I'm always there.

KING: Always there.

GRAY: The director always has to tweak.

KING: Is this a play that's, like, Broadway bound?

GRAY: You bet.

LARRY HAGMAN, ACTOR: Is it?

GRAY: Sure. You don't have to tell him.

KING: Before we talk all about "Dallas," tell me about the play.

GRAY: The play is extraordinary. I don't know whether you saw "Murder in the First" the film in 1995, with Kevin Bacon and Christian Slater. Well, the screen writer decided that he wanted to write a play version of it, which was a very good idea. So he wrote this wonderful play, and Ted Neeley -- do you remember Ted Neeley from "Jesus Christ Superstar?" He wanted to do the role that Kevin Bacon had originated on film, and we didn't want to have the violence. The film had an extraordinary amount of violence. So Dan Gordon -- who wrote "The Hurricane" with Denzel Washington. He wrote, you know, incredible amount of other beautiful films -- he really wanted to show it without the violence. So the play is the same story, about closing Alcatraz, takes place in '40s, and it is -- it's so beautiful, because it shows man's inhumanity.

KING: How did you come to direct it? GRAY: Now he had seen me a long time ago directing on "Dallas." And Mr. Hagman was the one that actually was my cheerleader for allowing no direct on "Dallas."

KING: You hired Larry for the play?

GRAY: Yes, I did.

HAGMAN: She was getting back at me.

KING: Did you sign on right away?

HAGMAN: She came on, and she said to me about three weeks before production started, she says, you want to go back on boards, you want to be in a play?

HAGMAN: I said no way in hell did I weren't go back on boards. She says, Monday morning, 10:00, rehearsals start, be there. Here I am.

GRAY: That's the way it worked.

HAGMAN: Yes. And he's fantastic in the part.

KING: If this goes on from -- you're in Ventura now to, like, Broadway. Would you go and you go?

GRAY: If he's invited.

HAGMAN: If you're invited

GRAY: If you behave. The great part about this is he plays a judge. He plays it beautifully, and he sits behind the judge's bench, puts on his black robe, and he has to sit and stay, which I love.

KING: The whole play?

GRAY: The whole play.

HAGMAN: Sit stay, turn over, play dead. I have 29 lines, mostly...

(CROSSTALK)

GRAY: He interrupts all the time.

HAGMAN: Well, yes, but I had six chuckles three solid laughs in less than...

GRAY: And a standing ovation.

KING: He's a prop?

HAGMAN: Yes.

GRAY: He is not. How can Larry Hagman be a prop? HAGMAN: I am a prop. You can't take your eyes off me, but I just sit there.

KING: "Murder in the First" coming to a theater near you, directed by Linda Gray. And you're in it, too, right?

GRAY: No, no, no.

KING: Oh, there's no two women in it?

GRAY: Yes there are two women, but I'm the director.

KING: Just the director?

GRAY: Yes.

KING: Power.

GRAY: It is. It's delicious. I'm having best time. The most incredible cast. And it's a brilliant, brilliant play.

KING: Let's go back.

Mr. Hagman...

(CROSSTALK)

HAGMAN: No, I love it, I love it. It's just that once you're stage, you can do anything you want to, because there is nobody to cuss you out, you know.

KING: Mr. Hagman and I, who appeared together in a film, by Mike Nichols, "Primary Colors." We had two scenes together.

HAGMAN: Yes. That was two weeks before my liver transplant, by the way.

KING: Is that was close?

HAGMAN: Yes, right, it was two weeks.

KING: And both you, you're with National Kidney Foundation. Now you're big. And you're United Nations.

GRAY: United Nations.

KING: You're our goodwill ambassador.

GRAY: Yes. Yes, sir.

KING: The part that -- who had this? Danny Kay had this.

GRAY: Danny Kay, Audrey Hepburn.

KING: Audrey Hepburn.

How did -- let's go back. It's so great seeing the two of you sitting together.

GRAY: It's great to be here.

KING: How did "Dallas" come about to you? Did you hire -- give me the genesis.

HAGMAN: Well, I was, broke, living in New York, or visiting my mother in New York, and we got two scripts, one was a comedy one, and one was this "Dallas," and I read the comedy thinking they wanted me for a situation comedy.

KING: Having done "Dream of Genie."

HAGMAN: Yes, right. And my wife read other one, and I heard a hoop come from the other one room. She says, this is it, there's not one redeeming good person in this whole play, I mean, you're going to love this, and it just kind of filtered down to me after a while.

KING: You wanted to play a bad guy.

HAGMAN: No. It was just was the right time, the right place, and it was about Texas, and was about a town 60 miles from where I was born, so I mean, I knew the venue down there.

KING: Did you think it would go, think it would be big?

HAGMAN: Oh, no. Who would ever think it would go like that. I didn't think would go at all, to tell you the truth. It was six- parter, and that was it.

KING: How did you get it?

GRAY: Well, actually, it was cast. Mary Friend (ph) -- dear, sweet departed friend -- had the role, but I had done a series in 1977 with Norman Lear. And the casting director, Ruth Conforte (ph), said, they're casting the small part on "Dallas," and I think you'd be great as one of the roles. She said they're looking for just a visual of someone who could have been an ex-Miss Texas. So she called him, and they said we already cast Mary Friend, we think, but we'll see anyway if you like her. So I came in, there was no role. They had to create a role for me to read. And I read a phone call on the other end, J.R. Ewing was on the other end, and he was supposed to be like late for dinner, again. You know where he was. But anyway, so I had this interview, and I knew in the room that I had the role, I just knew it intuitively, and I sat there tears streaming and I knew that I had the role of Sue Ellen Ewing.

KING: Did you think it would go very well?

GRAY: No. No. I thought this is the most dysfunctional group of people I have ever you know, encountered, and how could people possibly be enthralled by us.

KING: Why did it work, Larry?

HAGMAN: I think, because here we are, all living in one house, three multimillionaires living in one house with one bedroom each one bathroom each, not even two bathrooms, which is the basis of a good marriage, and it just came into that kind of European home family, you know, where the grandmother and grandfather, everybody lives in same house, and I think that's why it's so big abroad, too.

KING: Was big abroad. It's still big abroad?

HAGMAN: Still is, yes.

KING: Is still playing somewhere everywhere?

HAGMAN: I'm a killer in Romania.

KING: They love it.

HAGMAN: They do. Boy oh boy, yes.

GRAY: They Love it there.

KING: The chemistry between you two was supposed to be what? Loving or not loving?

HAGMAN: Loving, but love-hate kind of stuff. She hated me, and I loved her.

GRAY: Oh, stop.

KING: No, what was the chemistry supposed to be?

HAGMAN: Nobody knew. Nobody knew. All she ever said was you want coffee, or milk or tea, that's she ever had, really, literally, so we got behind the scenes, there'd be a major scene going on, and we'd started to bicker with each other. I, you know, I woke up this morning and there was no button on my overcoat. What the hell are you going to do? And she would go back and forth. And they would then push in to us in background, just to cover us and make us feel good, I guess, and we had this whole scene rewritten, and finally, that started to catch on, and they said, well, let's bring those parts up.

KING: So you started as a minor character?

GRAY: I was never to be a major character at all.

HAGMAN: Oh, yes. And I was "coffee, tea or milk" guy, too, just. I was just...

KING: Who were the major characters?

GRAY: Victoria and Bobby. Patrick and...

HAGMAN: The Montagues and the Capulets. It was, you know, really...

KING: They were the stars, you were the...

GRAY: I never was in the front of the show. In front of the show, they had pictures of all the stars. For two years, I was always in the back. I was never to be a character.

KING: How long was that show on?

HAGMAN: Thirteen years.

GRAY: Thirteen years.

KING: Here's a scene from never ending "Dallas." Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "DALLAS")

GRAY: You expected no be embarrassed in front of your family tonight at dinner. Well, I wasn't, was I? I was a perfect lady -- charming, witty and sober.

HAGMAN: I swear you're heading at 90 miles an hour toward a nervous breakdown. Going to have do something about those ravings of yours.

GRAY: No, J.R., I'm not raving, I am not drunk. I am just fine. And you're not going to put me back into that sanitarium.

HAGMAN: Who is going to stop me?

GRAY: Bobby is going to stop you. He's not going to let you put me away.

HAGMAN: I hope you can count on that. You know, I will get what I want.

GRAY: Tell me, J.R., which slut are you going to stay with tonight?

HAGMAN: What difference does it make? Whoever it is, it's got to be more interesting than the slut I'm looking at right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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