Larry Hagman boosts LUKoil in the old Soviet States

'Dallas' was one of the few American Television series broadcast during the communist regime of Nicolai Ceausecu. The dictator was a fan of the program, but broadcast it only to show the evils of capitalism. During the mid-1990s the corrupt Romanian billionaire Ilie Alexandru the "Cheese King" (now in prison on a 12 year sentence) created a Balkan version of the Southfork Ranch in Slobozia, on the main road between Bucharest and the Black Sea.

'Southfork Dallas in Hermes Land' is a cross between an amusement park and a resort based on the Southfork ranch including a 132-foot-tall replica of the Eiffel Tower, vernacular gypsy pagodas and castles.


In 1999 Larry Hagman and his wife Maj visited the copy of the Southfork Ranch in Slobozia with Ilie Alexandru, Prince Paul, pretender to the Romanian throne. Larry Hagman remarked that the Ranch looked just like the 'original' but was even larger.

Larry Hagman recently appeared in a series of advertisements for Lukoill, a Russian petroleum company, telling consumers that they will be "well ahead" if they use the product. The success of the campaign by the international advertising conglomerate Ogilvy & Mather was featured in a front page story in the Wall Street Journal.

In an interview in the Romanian newspaper Cotidianul with the businessman and founder of 'Dallas Southfork in Hermes Land', Ilie Alexandru, he confirms the story that George W. Bush attended his wedding in Slobozia while on a business trip. Alexandru was subsequently jailed for bankruptcy and taking illegal loans. Richard Nixon had a state visit in 1969, the U.S. gave Romania most-favored nation trading status in 1975, and even the Queen Elizabeth II (on the advice of the twats in the Foreign Office) named the murderous bastard an honorary knight in 1980. This week we have had Contileezza sucking up to the crypto communist, neo liberal successors to be allowed to use their rent free bases to enable the uS to extend it's evil empire even further. She then went on to Iraq toi meet Donald Rumsfeld who knows all about chummying up to murderous dictators.

``You know, it's on cable TV three times a day,'' said Hagman. ``We've got whole new generations of people watching it for the first time. I get a lot of mail from Bulgaria, Romania, Nigeria.''

In 1991 Vienna at the same time that an OPEC meeting was underway Hagman was was asked to say a few words. With Arab and Nigerian oil ministers present he was asked: 'What do you think the price of oil should be at, Mr. Hagman?'

"I said, 'Well, I think it should be $36 a barrel, that sounds good to me.' Well, the place fell apart. They yelled and hollered and screamed and said, 'Wonderful! That guy knows what he's talking about!' Well, I'd had a scene in 'Dallas' the week before where $36 was established and everybody seemed happy with it. So I just drew it from a script by somebody who didn't know anything about the oil business anyhow!" After Hagman's comments made the news, he got hate mail from fellow Americans fearful his comments might prompt higher gas prices

Don't knock Hagman, when he was in Germany peddling his autobiography in early 2003 he said to the Tagesspiegel newspaper"If George Bush attacks Iraq, tens of thousands of people will die without reason."

He 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."

When asked whether Bush would appreciate his accusation, Hagman replied: "It's all the same to me, he wouldn't understand the word fascism anyway."