Larry Hagman "Dallas". From then on, Hagman became one of the highest-paid stars in television. At the beginning of the 1980–81 season, writers were told to keep the storylines away from the actors until they really found out who actually shot J.R., and it took three weeks until the culprit was revealed on November 21, 1980, in a ratings record-breaking episode. For his performance as J.R. Ewing, Hagman was nominated for two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1980 and 1981, but did not win. He was also nominated for four Golden Globe Awards, between 1981 and
Larry Hagman Hagman returned to New York City, where he appeared in the off-Broadway play "Once Around the Block", by William Saroyan. That was followed by nearly a year in another off-Broadway play, James Lee's "Career". His Broadway debut occurred in 1958 in "Comes a Day". Hagman appeared in four other Broadway plays, "God and Kate Murphy", "The Nervous Set", "The Warm Peninsula", and "The Beauty Part". During this period, he also appeared in numerous, mostly live, television programs. Hagman's first television role was as Kenneth Davidson in the 1957 episode "Saturday Lost" of the syndicated crime drama, "Decoy", starring Beverly Garland