Free Hello Darlin' by LARRY HAGMAN Page A

popular show,” I said.
    “The hottest ticket in town.”
    “I’m not promising anything, but I’ll do my damnedest.”
    I understood how crucial it was to make myself vital to the war effort right from
     the start.
    She looked relieved when I said, “Why don’t you let me deal with the general directly
     on this one?”
    I met the general, who told me that he wanted six tickets. I informed him that the
     show was sold out every night, which he already knew, but I said I’d do my best to
     get him seats. A few days later, I delivered the prized tickets. Needless to say,
     that put me in very good standing with the general of the Third Air Force.
    Soon I took over the ticket business. My boss was upset, but she was a civilian and
     didn’t have to worry about the gunfire and mortar shells on the thirty-eighth parallel,
     so I didn’t really care if her nose was out of joint. I just wanted to do a good job
     getting tickets for VIPs and keep my own ass from getting shot off.
    By the end of the year I was put in charge of all the entertainment in the United
     Kingdom, which involved providing entertainment for sixty thousand men and their dependents.
     I produced
Stairway to theStars,
a talent contest that drew from aspiring entertainers in the army and the air force.
     Dozens of acts were brought to Bushy Park, including comics, jugglers, barbershop
     quartets, tap dancers, magicians, jazz combos, and vaudeville routines. I put the
     winners of each category from
Stairway to the Stars
in another show, called
The Spotlight Review,
and toured it successfully across the twenty-seven U.S. air force bases in the U.K.
    I traveled with the show as producer, director, and coordinator—training I’d learned
     from Sinjin in Florida. Through these trips, I met the people who ran the service
     clubs, and they spread the word that the show was great, and soon I was bringing the
     show to military bases in France, Germany, Italy, and Austria. It was a great scam.
    I also came to handle all the NCO and officers’ clubs, too. I might have been only
     an airman second class, or the equivalent of a PFC in the army, but I could take advantage
     of a staff that included a major, a lieutenant, a captain, several sergeants, and
     three civilian secretaries. I also dressed in civilian clothes most of the time and
     lived in my own apartment. For the military, it was the good life. No one had a clue
     what I actually did—nor, most of the time, did I.
    For the most part no one bothered me, because I was successful, but there were a few
     hard-asses who tried to put me in my place. One lieutenant, an escort officer with
     a USO group, which I also handled, came on the base for a week and made my life miserable
     by demanding one thing after another as if my sole purpose were to take care of him,
     not the other way around. As soon as he left I had my buddies in Personnel Services,
     the department in charge of the records, get even for me. They lost his pay records,
     threw out his medical records, and arranged a transfer to Thule, Greenland, which
     was the armpit of the air force.
    *   *   *
    As for my social life, I specialized in nighttime maneuvers. During my first year
     in the service, I dated actress Joan Collins, who was thenseventeen years old and so breathtakingly beautiful I thought she made Elizabeth
     Taylor look like a boy. I met her through Ted Flicker when he was going to the Royal
     Academy of Dramatic Art. Almost twenty, I was a lark for her, since she normally dated
     older men, in their twenties and thirties. But we had some fun. I also went out with
     her sister, Jackie, who was just as stunning. I never got anywhere with them, but
     boy, they were lots of fun.
    Two years later I met Maj (pronounced
My)
Axelsson, a twenty-five-year-old Swedish girl who was a successful clothing designer
     for a major wholesaler. She was my roommate’s friend, part of Henri’s cultured little
     group that liked to meet at pubs