Actor Larry Hagman played the ripely nefarious oil baron J.R. Ewing in the 1980s television show Dallas. It was Hagman's second iconic TV role: he also played Major Tony Nelson, the goofy astronaut hiding a genie in a bottle in I Dream of Jeannie. Hagman came from a showbiz family: his mother, Mary Martin, starred on Broadway in Peter Pan and The Sound of Music. Early in his career Hagman appeared in the road company of South Pacific with his mother, then moved on to other theater parts and a regular role on the TV soap opera The Edge of Night. His big break came with I Dream of Jeannie (1965-70), in which he cavorted comically with a voluptuous imp played by Barbara Eden. As popular as that show was, Hagman topped it with a 13-year run as the scheming Texas patriarch of the Ewing clan on Dallas (1978-1991). Dallas began a craze for prime-time soap operas; the final episode of its 1979-80 season ended with Hagman's character being shot by an unknown assailant, and the public uproar made "Who shot J.R.?" a byword for TV cliffhangers. His films include Fail-Safe (1964, with Walter Matthau), Superman (1978, with Christopher Reeve), S.O.B. (1981, with William Holden) and Primary Colors (1998, with John Travolta). He published a memoir, Hello Darlin', in 2001.