Like many people growing up in the 80s, I watched my share of Dallas. (And Dynasty.) And was amused and amazed at first the villain was nice Major Tony from I Dream of Jeanie. Teenage me wasn't a J.R. fan (not that I didn't root for some villains at that age, I so did, but the Stetson was too unsexy!), but Larry Hagman and his evil laugh were part of my adolescence, and years later I thought "small acting world, huh" when reading Noel Coward's diaries and figuring out Mary Martin (who was friends with Coward and co-starred in one of his musicals) was Hagman's mother. (So young Larry shows up as well.) But my lasting memory of Hagman outside of Dallas is an interview he gave back in 2002, at a point where Bush's popularity was at its zenith and the Iraq war was ever so popular, sharply critisizing both. I looked it up right now, and while the entire interview doesn't seem to be online anymore, selected quotes are: "If George Bush attacks Iraq, tens of thousands of people will die without reason," Hagman told Thursday's edition of the Tagesspiegel newspaper. The actor, who played the notorious Texas oil baron JR Ewing in the Dallas series, said Bush was a "sad figure: not too well educated, who doesn't get out of America much. He's leading the country towards fascism."

The obituaries pouring in, like this one, include tributes from various colleagues as is of course the custom on such occasions, but two details stand out for me nonetheless: that Linda Gray, who played Sue Ellen, and called him "my best friend for 35 years", was amidst Hagman's family at his side when he died, and that Hagman died married to the same woman he wedded over 60 years ago, Maj Axelsson. Enduring marriages and friendships in show biz must be as rare as in the oil industry, and yet. R.I.P.