Larry was the one who'd suggested JR losing everything -- he thought it was more interesting, to his credit.
I believe you've been misinformed about that. I'd need to see a link to some proof that Hagman suggested that change, or I'm saying calling it out for the bullshit it is. JR had become the most talked about TV character in the world. JR even got front page stories on magazines such as time that weren't in the habit of putting primetime soap actors on the front page. Think about that for a minute. Name even one other primetime soap actor who made it on to the cover of Time magazine. Can you name even one? Larry Hagman had a character that had become an icon. That word gets thrown around too easily, but in this case it's well deserved. Remember how the world was talking all summer long about who they thought JR. I haven't seen any TV character create that strong of an emotional reaction before or since.
You can look at the ratings when JR's character was presented as a very capable, intelligent, and powerful oilman that got all the other oilmen pissed off at him, scared of him, envious of him, or all three. The ratings when JR's character fit that description were phenomenal. Dallas was consistently in the top two highest rated shows on TV when his character was presented in a way that others in his industry were afraid of him because they knew he was a bad motherf***er. He got to the point where you couldn't even count the number of people who wanted him dead. That lead to the most successful storyline in Tv history and the episode where the attempted murderer was revealed set a record that stands to this day. I doubt anyone will ever break that particular record Dallas set.
Knowing all that to be true, knowing that common sense dictates that if something isn't broken, don't try to fix it, how believable is it to anyone reading this that Larry Hagman said "I'm playing a character that has captured the imaginations of more people than any TV character in history. Men want to be JR and women want to do JR. They say to themselves, yeah, he does live life on his own terms, the exact way he wants to live his life and that's cool. He's gotten all the oilmen in an uproar about what JR is doing but that's it - to paraphrase Mark Twain, JR is a lot like the weather: Everybody talks about him and complains about him, but nobody does anything about him. Kristin was the one exception but JR even survived her attempt to murder him.
They took a character that had become an American Icon, one that had led Dallas to set records as to how many people watched it, records that still stand to this day. And someone would have us believe that Larry Hagman would say words to the effect of, I'm tired of playing a character that is so ruthless and yet so competent and skilled at the oil business and has a gift of knowing how to get any woman he desires in bed.. He literally charms the pants off them and Larry hagman is tired of playing that character???
JR has so much going for him that a lot of the people in the audience live vicariously through him. They say to themselves: He does get everything he goes after and yeah, that is cool. He has the whole Texas oil industry outraged at him, and JR just smiles about that. There isn't one oilman whom JR fears. He's spent more money on spilt liquor than most of us earn in a year. He leaves more money in tips than we make in a year and yeah, that is cool. He's a kiiler in business, he has tons of women who desire him, he does whatever he wants living life on his exact terms and hell yeah, that's cool!
Men wanted to be him and women wanted to do him. What a phenomenon the character of JR had become. But that's not what Larry Hagman wants? He wants the writers to show JR as having very few or none of the above qualities? He wants to be portrayed as a loser and at times even a buffoon? Bullshit! That, as Scotty Demerest would say, stretches the imagination a bit too far.
You're willing to believe Larry Hagman wants to take a spectacularly successful character and weaken him? He wants the audience to stop living vicariously through him? He wants to go from the most feared, the most ruthless, and at the same time the most charming oilman you could ever imagine, and he wants to have JR become a loser who starts losing everything, his status, his reputation, his money, the lifestyle that money pays for and water down the character, weaken him, make him stop winning, making him lose his tremendous ability to get anything or any woman he sets his mind on. No, I don't think so!
Why does he want to take the most talked about, the most iconic character of our generation and turn him into a loser because he thinks the audience would find that would be more "interesting"? How dumb would an actor have to be to take something that successful, something that's legitimately a phenomenon and weaken him to the point where he's barely even recognizable? You want us to believe Larry Hagman wanted a character that had become the most talked about, most exciting character to ever cone along and have that character watered down, made ineffectual and relatively benign compared to the notoriety he had dedicated that last 10 years to creating? You expect me to believe Larry Hagman could be that damn dumb? Well, I don't believe it and I don't know how whoever started that rumor expected people to believe it.. That person must think Dallas fans are incredibly naive. I don't believe even a little bit of that and I'm amazed that anyone would think otherwise. I'm amazed that anyone would think that's a believable story. How naive do they think we Dallas fans are? It's just like I've said before: Yeah, I was born at night - just not last night.
