It all started when I was a medical student in

1983 with an elderly lady,

who had just had a cardiac procedure, as she

regained consciousness

. I was standing at her bedside. The color

drained from her face as she opened

her eyes, which widened while she looked at me.

Her heartbeat raced on the monitor

. Her nurse and I leaned over her, hoping to find

out what was wrong, when she

whispered, "Don't hurt me, JR!". Ever since then

I cannot remember how many

conversations have started, "Do you know that

you look just like ..."

It has been fun, whether on vacation at ski

resorts or shopping in New York City.

I have been stopped by folks, who were

convinced that I was Larry Hagman,

wanting their picture with me or an autograph.

People from other countries,

who were enjoying Dallas for the first time on

TV, have told me how much

they enjoyed the show and how excited they

were to meet me. I finally e-mailed

Mr. Hagman after an airlines gate agent, who

knows him, encouraged me to

write and tell him of my resemblance. He wrote

me back and told me,

"You're a lucky man!"

Indeed I am a lucky man, to resemble such a

respected and loved celebrity.

Clarion Ledger

August 14, 2005

'I was J.R. and that's all there was to it'

By Billy Watkins

He was a junior medical student in 1983 when he walked into a

patient's room

 

and noticed a look of horror slowly spread across the elderly

woman's face.

"Please don't hurt me, J.R.," she pleaded, mistaking him for the

villainous character

J.R. Ewing on the hit TV series Dallas.

As a radiation oncologist in Jackson, can't help but laugh as he

tells the story.

"It's the first time I can remember someone really thinking I was

(actor)

Larry Hagman," he says.

It certainly wasn't the last.

When he served as a flight surgeon in the Air Force, his

comrades said

his identification picture looked like a cast photo of Hagman on

the 1960s

TV series I Dream of Jeannie, on which Hagman played an

astronaut in the Air Force.

But it was on a ski trip in the mid-1990s when he began to realize

he could pass for Hagman's twin.

"Everybody at the ski resort just knew I was Larry Hagman, no

doubt

about it," he says. "Women were tossing cameras to their

husbands and

pushing my wife out of the way so they could get a picture with

good ol' J.R.

"I tried to explain, but they didn't want to hear it. I was J.R. and

that's all there was to it."

In 2002, he and his wife, Deena, visited New York "and I could

barely walk

down the street ... people were stopping me, again pushing

Deena out of the

way to get pictures. It was to the point where I felt like walking

into a

restaurant and yelling 'Where's my table!?' "

As he and Deena were about to board a flight out of New York's

Laguardia Airport,

a flight attendant approached him.

"I was like 'I know, I look like Larry Hagman,' " he says. "She

said,

'You don't understand. I know Larry. And you don't just look like

him

, you look like his clone. You should write him and send him a

picture.

He'd get a kick out of it.' "

He wasn't a Dallas fan when it aired on CBS from 1978 through

1992,

e-mailed Hagman and attached a photo. Hagman wrote back:

"You're a

lucky man. Enjoy life!" He also added a tag line: "Be sure and

sign your organ donor card."

Hagman, now 73, underwent a liver transplant in 1995.

"I have to admit it was sort of neat getting an e-mail from one of

the most

recognizable people in the world," he says.

A few months ago, he traveled to Southfork Ranch, near Dallas,

the "home"

of the Ewings on the TV program. Just for fun, he bought a

cowboy hat for the occasion.

"I walked into the gift shop there and the woman behind the

counter litera

lly gasped when I walked in," he says. "A guy leading a tour

group said 'Look,

folks, J.R. is at the ranch today.' Twenty flash bulbs went off. It

was crazy.

"When we were in the museum there at Southfork, our daughter

(Chelsea, 16)

kept looking at the pictures of Larry Hagman, then looking back

at me

. She finally said, 'Dad, we've got to get out of here. This is

freaking me out.' "

A father of three, emphasizes he takes his job seriously. He sees

patients

going through some of the toughest times of their lives. Just

because he can

laugh and enjoy his mysterious stardom, he says, doesn't

diminish his life's

mission of helping people whip cancer.

"I try to spread hope and optimism to my patients," says him,

a native of Indiana. "I try, somehow, to put a smile on their faces —

even if I have to use the old J.R. line 'Hello, darlin'.

 

"So, in a strange way, this thing can help me in my work. It's a

blessing."