The cause was complications of cancer, his family said in a statement. Mr. Hagman had been in Dallas filming an episode of the TNT cable channel’s reboot of that series, which had made him the man audiences loved to hate from 1978 to 1991.
In October 2011, shortly before filming began on the new “Dallas,” Mr. Hagman announced that he had a “treatable” form of cancer. It was the latest of several health problems he had experienced since learning that he had cirrhosis in 1992. (Mr. Hagman acknowledged at the time that he had been a heavy drinker.) In 1995, he received a liver transplant after doctors discovered a tumor on his liver.
“As J. R., I could get away with anything — bribery, blackmail and adultery,” Mr. Hagman said after receiving his diagnosis last year. “But I got caught by cancer.” Nonetheless, he said, he relished the opportunity to reprise his best-known role.
For a time in the late ’70s and early ’80s, Mr. Hagman could lay claim to the title of most famous actor in the world. “Dallas,” a soapy saga of a ranch-owning Texas oil family, was a hit in 57 countries. The rich villainy of J. R. revived Mr. Hagman’s career after his co-starring role in the hit 1960s sitcom “I Dream of Jeannie” had typecast him as a lightweight comic actor.
The celebrated signature episode of “Dallas,” which resolved the question “Who shot J. R.?” — a mystery masterfully marketed by the network and the show’s producers — set viewing records, with an estimated 350 million people all over the world tuning in for the answer. (The shooter turned out to be Kristin Shepard, played by Mary Crosby, the scheming adulterous sister of J. R.’s wife, Sue Ellen, played by Linda Gray.)
The episode became the second-highest-rated television program ever (after the final episode of “M*A*S*H”) with a rating of 53.3 percent and an average audience of 41,470,000 households.
Few actors enjoyed their fame as much as Mr. Hagman, who portrayed the oilman-robber baron J. R. as, in one critic’s words, “an overstuffed Iago in a Stetson hat.” At the height of the show’s popularity, he handed out fake $100 bills with his face on them.
When TNT remounted “Dallas” with a new generation of Ewings, it invited Mr. Hagman to return as J. R. He won praise for his performance, with some critics saying that he remained the best thing about “Dallas.” The new version, which made its debut this year, was a success and TNT ordered a second season.
Larry Martin Hagman was born in Fort Worth on Sept. 21, 1931. His mother was the actress Mary Martin, who would become famous for her performances in “South Pacific,” “Peter Pan,” “The Sound of Music” and other Broadway shows. His father, Benjamin Hagman, was a lawyer whose clients included a number of wealthy Texas oil men; Larry Hagman’s memory of those tycoons would later help shape his portrayal of J. R. Ewing. (“They had such a nice, sweet smile,” he recalled. “But when you finished the meeting, your socks were missing, and you hadn’t even noticed they’d taken your boots.”)
His parents were divorced when he was 5. He was brought up in Los Angeles by his maternal grandmother, and after she died in 1943, he spent time with his father in Fort Worth and with his mother and his stepfather, Richard Halliday, a producer, manager and agent.
“I never resented her; she was never around,” he said of his mother in an interview with Playboy magazine at the height of his fame. “As far as I was concerned, I enjoyed my youth very much.”
Mr. Hagman attended a series of private and military schools, leaving most of them, he admitted, with little distinction and occasionally at their request. After returning to Texas to live with his father, he graduated from Weatherford High School and later attended Bard College, which also proved to be an academically unsuccessful experience.
He returned to Texas, this time to his first theater job, at the Margo Jones theater in the round in Dallas. He later served apprenticeships in stock companies. In 1951, his mother arranged a small role for him in the London company of “South Pacific,” in which she was starring. He remained in Europe for five years, four of them in the Air Force as a director of U.S.O. shows.
Bill Carter and Marc Santora contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 24, 2012
An earlier version of this article misidentified a 1973 sitcom that Larry Hagman starred in. It was “Here We Go Again,” not “You Again.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/arts/television/larry-hagman-who-played-jr-ewing-on-dallas-dies-at-81.html?partner=rss&emc=rss