Oil Villain Goes Green
July 13th, 2010
J.R. Ewing returns to the small screen on Tuesday, and the boys down at the Cattleman’s Club just might need a double bourbon when they hear what he has to say.
Larry Hagman, the actor who played the scheming Texas oilman on the long-running television show “Dallas,” is reprising his role as J.R. in an advertising campaign to promote solar energy and SolarWorld, a German photovoltaic module maker.
“In the past it was always about the oil,” Mr. Hagman says in a TV commercial that is being introduced on Tuesday at the Intersolar conference in San Francisco.
“The oil was flowing and so was the money. Too dirty, I quit it years ago,” he growls as he saunters past a portrait of a grinning J.R. in younger days and a wide-screen television showing images of an offshore oil rig and blackened waters.
Doffing a 10-gallon hat, he heads outside into the sunshine and gazes at a solar array on the roof of the house. “But I’m still in the energy business. There’s always a better alternative.”
“Shine, baby shine,” he says with his trademark J.R. cackle.
In real life, Mr. Hagman, 78, lives on an estate in the Southern California town of Ojai where he installed a massive 94-kilowatt solar system, thought to be the world’s largest residential array, several years ago.
“With all that oil is gushing away in the gulf, I figured it was time to call for a new direction in where we’re getting our energy,” the actor said in an interview on Monday. “Since Sarah Palin is saying, `Drill, baby, drill,’ I’m saying, ‘Shine, baby, shine.’ It’s a lot cheaper and cleaner.”
Mr. Hagman also serves on the board of the Solar Electric Light Fund, a nonprofit that builds solar systems in poverty-stricken areas of the world.
SolarWorld donated solar panels for the group’s work in Haiti after the earthquake there in January. On Tuesday the company said it would give an additional 100 kilowatts’ worth of panels to provide electricity for at least five health clinics.
In return, Mr. Hagman made the commercials for SolarWorld, which will run nationally and in regional markets in coming weeks and appear online starting on Tuesday. He is also scheduled to give a speech at the Intersolar conference.
SolarWorld, which is based in Germany but operates factories in California and Oregon, is just the latest solar company to introduce a high-profile advertising campaign. Yingli, a previously little known Chinese solar panel maker, was an official sponsor of the World Cup, and its logo adorned South African soccer stadiums, seen by millions of television viewers.
Since it began selling solar panels in the United States last year, Yingli has captured about a third of the California market.
SolarWorld wants to get the word out that while its headquarters is in Germany, it is manufacturing solar panels in the United States and providing jobs for Americans, said Ben Santarris, a spokesman for its American operations.
“The SolarWorld name has only been in this market since 2006,” he said, “We have competitors with American names that don’t produce anything in this market.”
Mr. Hagman acknowledged rather gleefully that his advocacy of renewable energy might create some cognitive dissonance among those who associate him with a rapacious Texas oil baron.
“The thing is, these solar panels are manufactured domestically and can provide a lot of jobs for soldiers returning from all those wars we have fought,” he said.
