The Larry Hagman Research Corner: Bibliography and Notes

2000th Issue of TV Guide

"Dallas's Larry Hagman already had those J.R. instincts when he was asked to appear on The Tex and Jinx Show many years ago in New York. "I was walking down the street and a friend, who was a producer on the show, spotted me. He said, 'God, Larry, our interview can't make it today. Can you come on the show?' I only got on because I was Mary Martin's son. I had my guitar with me, so I sang a song - pretty badly. I was nervous as hell but I saved the day for them. After the song, they said, 'Let's talk about your future.' And I said, 'I'd like to be an actor and a director, and I want to be rich.' And I've done all three. The next day, I remember one girl said to me, 'I saw you. Boy, you were really terrible.' Well, she wasn't so hot herself. But that was my only TV appearance for a while.""

Larry explains the spelling of his last name

GENESIS: Your original name was Hageman, with an "e" in the middle?

HAGMAN: No, it was Hagman. I changed it one time, because it's pronounced, in my family, 'heg-man.' But everybody calls you 'hag-man,' right? After a while you answer to anything! So at one time in my life, I changed it to h-a-g-e-m-a-n, hoping someone would say 'heg-man.' It didn't work.

"Weatherford Tex., July 14 - Benjamin J. Hagman, a lawyer and the first husband of Mary Martin, the actress-singer, died of a stroke today at the Veteran's Hospital in Dallas. He was 57 years old.

"Mr. Hagman married Miss Martin about 1930, when she was still a teen-aged voice student at the University of Texas. They were divorced about five years later. She is now married to Richard Halliday, the theatrical producer.

"Mr. Hagman was an Army officer in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II. He Retired from the Reserve two years ago as a lieutenant colonel.

"He leaves his second wife, the former Juanita Saul; a son, Larry, born during his marriage to Miss Martin; a son, Gary L., born of his second marriage, and two grandchildren."

Review of "The Beauty Part"

"Larry Hagman played the youth with straight face and earnest demeanour, this offering a foil for the comic antics of his fellow performers."

Review of "The Beauty Part".

"The shock sends Lance - played with a winning witlessness by Larry Hagman - off on a quest for values other than cash."

Picture of Larry from "The Edge of Night" on P35

Joan Harvey: "There is so much fun on our show. A complete lack of tension. Larry Hagman, who plays my husband Ed, is so real. There's a sensitivity in Larry that I haven't seen in many actors, yet he has great strength. I don't often get a chance to see one of our scenes, because the show is live. But when one show had to be taped last fall and I watched it later from home, I cried during a scene between Larry and me! It was like watching two other people.

"It's all very real to us. Mary Martin, Larry's own mother, telephoned one day. 'You are going to lose your baby,' she said sadly - and suddenly she was crying. And, when I married Larry on the show, his real wife, Maj, sent me flowers. The card read, 'He is the nicest husband in the world and I hope you will enjoy him too.'"

"...she began to talk abut Larry Hagman, her son by a first marriage.

'I hate to be so unoriginal, just when you are doing a new portrait of me,' she sparkled, 'but don't you think that, in portraits, you've got to get in a subject's essential features - and don't you think an essential feature of me, 14 years ago or now, is that I remain, most hopelessly -' she laughed out loud in candid enjoyment of what she was going to say - 'a mother?'

She seemed absolutely delighted when I told her I'd liked Larry in his recent The Nervous Set, on Broadway, in which he played a drawling, beardless Western-style beatnik. With great pride, she spoke of him in the parts he played in Career, off Broadway, and Comes a Day, on Broadway, in support of Judith Anderson. 'He's 25 or 26 now, I think,' she said. 'What a variety of parts he's played in six months: Priest in God and Kate Murphy, beatnik, drunken soldier, all the rest.'

Suddenly she thought of something, unless it was that my eyes had suddenly become bloodshot from the two vodka concoctions I'd had it seemed to me that she blushed.

'I sat in the first row in Comes a Day, and I didn't know the show. At least I didn't know it well. Larry came on, and there he was, close enough to me so he could have leaned over and grabbed the playbill out of my hands. His ablomb was complete. He paid absolutely no attention to me. Now the part he played was something like the stallion-minded fellow in Picnic that Ralph Meeker played. But he couldn't have cared less that his mother was out front. Coldbloodedly, with artistic afterthought, he went through his seduction scene. And, in a while, it couldn't have mattered less that this wild young man on stage was my son. I don't mind telling you I thought he was great. Only when he took his bow with the others at the end did he look at me. Then he grinned and grinned.'

She grinned in her turn. 'Now he's set to open in The Warm Peninsula (which stars Julie Harris and June Havoc). I think he has something to do with June in it. Just fancy! June is a long-time friend of mine. I tell you, that boy is beginning to betray to everybody what my age is.' She let the wind disarrange her a bit, then she rearranged herself, as beautifully as she was doing everything else. 'Oh, well. Life and Time magazines, one or both, have given my real age away anyway. So I don't suppose it really matters that Larry is growing up.'"

Review of "God and Kate Murphy". This play closed after only 12 performances, and here is the reason why: "The new Irish play by Kieran Tunney and John Synge faces a serious problem today that is indicative of the sorry condition of the theater today. Lacking a playhouse, it managed to book ten days at the 54th Street Theater, but on Saturday next will be forced to leave there to make way for 'Look Homeward Angel,' which is being dispossessed from the Barrymore by the forthcoming 'A Raisin in the Sun.' In effect, the shortage of houses is becoming so acute that 'God and Kate Murphy' may very well have to close down before it has been properly tested and despite the fact that is received some good reviews."

As for Larry: "Larry Hagman is fast becoming a first-rate young leading man and has never been better than as the son who is more heir to the flesh than to the spirit. He is particularly fine when, after having been ordained, he discovers that he has been duped into the priesthood by his mother."

"Since it is true that 'an apple never falls far from the tree,' Mary is also blessed with a wonderful son. Larry, as a youngster, was never fascinated by the fact that his mother was a famous stage star, nor was he the least bit interested the theater. He wanted to remain in Texas and be a horse doctor, or a rancher, or a farmer. And so Mary let him stay in Weatherford with her widowed mother and it wasn't until after her mother's untimely death, and Larry came to New York during the run of 'South Pacific,' that the stage bug hit him too.

"Little did Mary dream, when she ran a dancing school back home and tried so hard to teach her young son a few tap steps, that some twelve years later he would make his stage debut as a 'Seabee' in the London production of 'South Pacific,' dancing the very same steps in the 'Honey Bun' number! Uncle Sam soon nipped Larry's career in the bud, however, just as he was getting started, and put him in another kind of uniform. He's still in service in London, in charge of special entertainment for the Air Force.

"Larry's married now to a beautiful swedish girl, whom Mary, Dick and Heller met for the first time when they were in Paris last summer with 'Skin of Our Teeth,' and the entire Halliday family promptly fell in love with her. Maj (pronounced Mai) is a brilliant clothes designer, but she hopes her greatest talent will be as a mother. She and Larry want a large brood, and they don't want to rely on the precariousness of show business to help support them. They want firm roots, and so Larry has turned to the interest of his childhood again - the good earth. As soon as he returns to civilian life, he and Maj want to run the coffee plantation which Mary and Dick have bought in Brazil - and start their nursery there."

Note: Some factual errors here. Larry's grandmother died when he was 12, long before "South Pacific". He did, however, decide to become an actor around the time "South Pacific" was on Broadway. The London production of "South Pacific" was not Larry's first role. He had already been acting for almost two years when the show opened. - LM

"Three months of the year, the Hallidays hope to spend at their plantation, which they've named 'Never Never Land.' They also think of it as an eventual retirement spot. 'We don't plan to work until we can't walk anymore.' Until then, her son by an earlier marriage, Larry Hagman, 25, and his wife will settle there."

"All the parents I know, including myself, face the frightening feeling of losing contact with their children. At 17, Larry got our permission to attend a party in New York City. At 2:00 A.M. he had not returned. The next hour was agony.

"At 3:00 A.M. he phoned and said: 'I didn't realize it was so late, we were having such a good time.' Then he added, 'I'm not doing anything you'd be ashamed of.'"

"Larry is in the Air Force, in England. His letters are amazing and wonderful because he's pouring back all the things we thought we could never teach him: 'I'm beginning to understand all the anxious moments I've caused you and Richard,' he writes, 'and all your problems and hopes.'"

"Sgt. Larry Hagman, son of Mary Martin, the actress, will marry Mag Irene Axelsson, Swedish-born dress designer, in London on Christmas day, Miss Martin said today. Mr. Hagman, 23, directs entertainment for American soldiers in the British sector of Europe. His father, Miss Martin's first husband, is Benjamin Hagman, a Weatherford, Tex., attorney."

Note: They spelled Larry's name right this time, but messed up Maj's! - LM

Airman Larry Hagman, who is serving his Air Force hitch as an entertainment specialist at 3d AF Hq, South Kulslip, is going to stay in show business when he gets his discharge a couple at years hence - "After all, it's in the family." Hagman commented.

He's Mary Martin's son.

He was with his mother in "South Pacific" for a year here, serving variously as soldier, sailor and marine in the chorus which aided and abetted "Luther Billis," the comic lead.

After a year in the show, Hagman decided to try the service as a full-time job and enlisted at the Bushy Park base here Aug. 1, 1952, following his farewell performance tour.

After basic training at the Sealand base, Hagman and the Air Force agreed that he was ideally suited for a job as an entertainment specialist.

"I'm getting a lot of wonderful experience here," he commented. On his first year in the job he organized a commandwide search for talent called "Stairway to the Stars" and with his discoveries, produced the "Spotlight Review," a show which toured the UK, Germany, Austria and Italy.

A/1C Hagman directed and manned the all-EM show on its entire two-month, 50-performance tour. It played to packed houses at nearly every base. The 33-man cast, spread over 20 acts, did not include Hagman, who is a song-and-dance man in his own right, although he can't read music.

"I prefer to stick to directing," he explained, "because if you try to do both and your act doesn't go over, the others aren't likely to follow your advice."

Hagman's' advice is as good as any around the service club circuit thanks to his mother, who taught him most of the tricks of show business. "Just watching her was an education," the lanky, Texas-born airman commented.

In addition to his "Spotlight Review" masterpiece, Hagman built a show around Pfc Eddie Fisher when he toured the last year and has served as a judge in the USAFE variety talent contest and the barbershop quartet competition.

One of his principal jobs is to set up tours and make all the necessary reservations and arrangements for professional entertainment shows which tour the command.

As a director Hagman follows a foolproof formula for his shows - "keep 'em fast and funny but within the bounds of good taste."

"We try to give the men what they want, not what some people think might be good for them," he added.

But being busy doesn't keep him out of touch with Broadway. He managed a leave in November during which he caught his mother's new show, "Kind Sir" with Charles Boyer.

"Mother was terrific." Hagman admitted, "and Boyer was good, too." But it isn't up to "South Pacific," according to the 3d AF entertainment specialist.

"She was in 'South Pacific' so long I really don't remember much of what she did before that." he added

"When Mary Martin appears in the London production of 'South Pacific,' beginning on Nov. 1, at the Drury Lane Theatre, one of the members of her supporting company will be her 19-year-old son, Larry Hageman. Mr. Hageman made his local professional acting debut here in April, when he appeared in 'The Taming of the Shrew' at the New York City Center. In 'South Pacific' he will protray Yeoman Herbert Quale"

Note: The misspellings continue...... - LM

"NEW YORK, May 5 - The New York City Center premiere of Margaret Webster's revival of 'The Taming of the Shrew' was not 'just another opening - another show' for me. It was an evening of personal enchantment because it heralded the Broadway debut of a young actor whom I have known since he was a small boy - 18 year old Larry Hageman. It was 12 years ago that I attended the Broadway debut of his mother who arrived in New York with a letter of introduction to me. I have proudly watched her career from a ringside seat ever since that memorable night when she became Broadway's favorite valentine - Mary Martin.

"Mary, giving her 761st performance of 'South Pacific,' couldn't be on hand to applaud Larry on this auspicious occasion, but her husband, Richard Halliday, who has been like a father to his stepson, was on hand to root for them both.

"Later, when I went backstage to congratulate Larry, he told me that Mary's opening night gift to him was a snappy new sports outfit with a card admonishing him, 'This is not to be worn at 21!'

"He also beamingly showed me congratulatory wires he has received from his 9-year-old step-sister Heller and from Nedda and Josh Logan, Dorothy and Oscar Hammerstein, Dorothy and Dick Rogers and one signed merely Larry. I assumed that this could be no one less than Sir Laurence Olivier, but Larry H., with the frankness of youth, announced that it came from Larry Gates, A fellow member of the cast.

"Larry, who, in his tall blond handsomeness bears a striking resemblance to his famous mother, has also inherited her modest charm and infinte capacity for work. Because of his sincere desire to get to the top on his own, just as his mother did, a grave injustice was done him by one of the local drama critics. In reviewing 'Taming of the Shrew,' the critic singled Larry out above anyone else in the cast for extravagant praise, absurdly unwarranted, in view of the three minor roles he played.

"Mary was infuriated over the embarrassing position in which the notice placed her son and made apologies to Margaret Webster and the rest of the company. So did Larry"

One photo of Larry and Mary, with the caption "Mary Martin's son, Larry, now works for the same producer who discovered Mary"

"The Halliday home is their base of operations, and the children, Larry and Heller, have seen a parade of theatrical luminaries come and go. No doors were ever closed to the youngsters and they have, quite naturally, fallen in love with the theater. When Mary toured the country in 'Annie Get Your Gun', Heller appeared as her younger sister. 'Larry would have been in it, too,' Mary reveals, 'only that was about the time he decided to become a veterinarian. Since that time,' and here she smiles, 'he's come back to his first love.'"

"FOR THE RECORD: Larry, 19 year old son of Mary Martin, must have inherited her singing voice. He and Mary recorded 'You're Just in Love,' a tune from 'Call Me Madam.' One line in the lyric didn't sound motherly; so Irving Berlin changed it for Mary. Larry really will get started in show business when he goes to Florida to join Larry Schwab's musical circus. Schwab gave Mary her first job in the theater."

Note: It was St. John Terrell's Music Circus. - LM

"Local readers of Sunday's New York Herald Tribune were delighted to read in Walter Terry's column 'The Dance World' glowing references to a young man who made many Dallas friends during his stay with Margo Jones' Theater '50 company last season. He was, of course, Larry Hagman, son of Broadway celebrity Mary Martin, who was seen in a bit role during Margo's premiere production of Sean O'Casey's 'Cock-a-Doodle Dandy.'

"In reviewing a graduation performance of student Zoe Warren's ballet 'Faust' at Bard College on the Hudson, Mr. Terry wrote: 'The real surprise, the 'discovery' of the occasion was to be found in the dancing of Larry Hagman who, in the small part of Valentine, made it perfectly clear that here was dance talent of the first order.

"'The young man was not, I learned later, a dance major nor had he ever before taken part in a dance program, yet his brief passages of dance disclosed, in potential at least, a strong and easy facility of movement, an instinctive feeling for dramatic accent and a remarkable awareness of dynamic contrasts. Perhaps, Mr. Hagman comes by his dance talent via inheritance, for his mother is the wonderful Mary Martin. Whatever the source of the talent, however, it is a highly individual one and one worthy of fostering.'"

Review of "Cock-a-Doodle Dandy": "Many other roles were taken by local drama students with varying success and with one conspicuous failure in the meek Father Domineer, who should have bellowed like a nonconformist scourge. Exceptionally good were Charles Braswell and Larry Hagman as the two rough fellows, as O'Casey calls them."

"When 'Cock-a-doodle-Dandy' the Sean O'Casey play which will have its first American performance at Theater '50 Monday evening completes its three weeks' run, Larry Hagman, one of the theater's production assistants will return to Bard College in New York.

"Young Hagman, 18-year-old drama student who has been here doing field work with Theater '50 for his drama course at Bard, was seen in the repertory group's last production 'My Granny Van,' and will also have a small role in the O'Casey production, that of the 'Second Rough Fellow.'

"The son of Mary Martin, the actress, and Ben Hagman of Weatherford he intends to make the theater his career, and his greatest ambition is to appear in a play with his mother and his young half-sister, Heller Halliday. The latter will be remembered here as one of Annie's little sisters, in the State Fair of Texas production of 'Annie Get Your Gun' in which Miss Martin Starred.

"The O'Casey play which will open at 8:15 p.m. Monday has had its only previous production in December by the People's Theater in London. It is the first fantasy to be offered on the local arena stage, and has a cast of sixteen."

"One of the first events of the new year for the group will be the addition of Larry Hageman, 17-year-old son of Mary Martin, who is currently starring in 'South Pacific.' Young Hageman will arrive in Dallas by plane at 5:30 p.m. Monday. He will spend the next six weeks as one of the production assistants at Theater '50 as field work for academic credit on his drama major at Bard College in New York. He will also have a walk-on part, that of a Western Union messenger, in 'My Granny Van,' opening Jan. 9. He played a major role in the senior play at Weatherford High School, where he graduated last year. At Bard College he has appeared in 'Twelfth Night' and in Stringberg's 'The Father,' he had the role of the doctor."

"One day this past summer Mary and I were down by another pool - one Mr. and Mrs. Richard Halliday have made from a brook that invades their lawn down the hill from the cherry tree. It was drowsy there. Her son Larry, just 17, tall and strong at the lawn mower, was pushing up the hill. Their daughter, Heller, floated tranquilly on the pool in a miniature rubber boat"

"This past spring her son Larry was leading man in the senior play at the same school, saw his mother's name scribbled on the scenery and put his on too. Underneath and in smaller type, I hope, for his sake."

Note: Looks like Mr. Schwab didn't know Larry Hagman very well! - LM

"Larry Hagman, 17-year-old son of Broadway star Mary Martin, had the leading male role in 'This Girl Business,' presented Thursday night in the Weatherford (Texas) High School Auditorium. Weatherford is Miss Martin's home town."

"Her life really began when she was going to school at Ward-Belmont in Nashville, Tennessee. At Christmastime of the first year she decided that education was tedious and she got married to escape it. That Marriage lasted five years and ended in divorce. Her son by that union is now fourteen and goes to school in Woodstock, Vermont"

Miss Martin has her hands full with Heller but her present worries center about her son, Larry. 'He hears us phoning Hollywood and has conceived the idea we're millionaires. The other day he was home on vacation and decided to call his girl in Boston. I said 'Go ahead, but when you're through ask the operator the charges because you'll have to pay them.' That stunned him for a minute but he's a fine kid. He tells us that he wants to work on a farm this summer. I've stopped worrying about him now. I guess girls are easier to raise.'"

Note: Mary Martin had a misscarriage due to RH- blood, though this was not mentioned at the time. - LM

"Mrs. Preston Martin of Westwood Hills is anticipating a visit from her daughter, Mrs. R. R. Andrews (Jerry Martin) of Dallas, Tex."

"Mrs. Martin and her grandson, Larry Hagman, are remaining in town this summer, while Larry is enjoying outdoor sports at the Urban Military Academy sumer camp in Brentwood."

"Just now Mary is pretty excited over the prospect of a visit from the stork in November. She is perfectly certain it will be a girl, and refuses to comtemplate anything else. And to settle the matter finally young Mr. and Mrs. Halliday have already picked out the name of Mary H. Halliday."

"According to Mary, the H is for Heller, and that stands for just what you think it does. And in case the young lady doesn't care for that when she grows up, Mary says she can change it to Hope, which is one of Dick Halliday's family names"

"One of the reasons Mary is so anxious to have a girl, is that she already has a son by a former marriage, Larry, aged 9, who lives with his grandmother."

"She was married once before to Ben Hagman, a Texas lawyer, and has by him a handsome son, Larry, age 9. The fact that Miss Martin was a divorcee and a mother didn't come out for some time after her joyous and space-filling discovery in a Broadway musical comedy"

"Mary and Dick want a baby but it must be a girl and they are debating naming her Heller Halliday, which has a nice lilt to it, and they think any child of theirs would certainly be a Heller."

"Miss Martin, now 26 (a mother at 17!), is a Weatherford, Tex., girl who made her stage debut when she was 5, singing "When Apples Grow on Trees," at an Elks' carnival."

"Mary's mother now lives in another house in Hollywood and has charge of her grandson, Larry."

"On the lot Miss Martin is called Mrs. De Mille because, like the celebrated Cecil B., she can't seem to go anywhere without a large retinue trailing her. Her train may include her mother, Larry, a private secretary, a dressmaker, and any number of friends."

Note: everyone's ages are correct here. Looks like Heller's name was decided before a pregnancy (she was born 11/4/1941), so it had nothing to do with the baby's kicking, which was the usual story told later. - LM

"The famous strip-tease that accompanies the 'Daddy' song originated about as casually. The act was to be a burlesque adagio, with Miss Martin - clad bulkily in a raccoon coat, earmuffs and mittens - tossed around by five gents. But while rehearsing for the opening in an autumn heat wave, the quintet began missing its catches, and as the rhumba music got hotter and hotter, so did the act. The fur began to fly, and it ended with the pride of Weatherford peeling in a solo act which eventually panicked the populace."

"That's Miss Martin's version. She vows that she has yet to see a genuine burly-house strip-tease. 'I didn't think there was anything scandalous about it.' she said. 'I always wore shorts when I taught dancing and briefer than that in some shows. But when I read the headlines the morning after the opening, I was kind of - well - bothered about how to tell my family. They kept asking what I did, so finally I got my secretery to break the news and she wrote mother: 'Mary does a kind of strip-tease in the show.''"

"'But the only person who ever gave me a callin'-down about it was my little boy, Larry, who was about 6 then, when mother brought him to New York. During my act, he kept sliding lower and lower in his seat, and when he came backstage he talked about everybody in the cast except me. So finally I asked, 'Didn't you like it?' And he said, 'Well - mother, do you have to take off your clothes in front of all those people?''"

"Paramount didn't think a husky son would be good publicity for its warbling glamourist but Miss Martin wouldn't cooperate worth a hang - just kept telling everybody about Larry's music lessons and how he reads her press notices."

"Other member of the household is a gigantic Russian wolfhound, which secretly terrifies Miss Martin, though she wouldn't part with the creature. The dog was Larry's idea of a perfect wedding present to his mother, and as for Miss Martin, she said it was exactly what she had wanted all her life"

Note: Larry was 7 when "Leave it to Me", the show where Mary did her strip-tease, opened on 11/9/1938. - LM

"The old restlessness began to gnaw at me again; the same restlessness that had made school in Nashville pall so badly, that had driven me in my freshman year into a much too early marriage which had no chance of succeeding but which gave me my most precious possession - Larry, now seven years old"

"Mary rode twice around the crowded square, leaning out to holler 'Hello' to old friends and neighbors. With her, 24-year-old Mary had her 8-year-old son, Larry Hagman."

Note: Mary Martin was really 26 at this point. No pictures of Larry, unfortunately, but there is one of Mary and Larry's nanny, Billie. Note that Hagman is spelled correctly here. This is the earliest reference to Larry Hagman that I could find that includes his last name. - LM

"Practically the whole world knows by now that Mary is the second daughter of the late Judge Preston Martin of Weatherford, and Mrs. Martin, that she was born Dec. 1, 1914; that she was a dancing teacher, that she is 5 feet 4 1/2 inches tall with brown eyes, and reddish brown hair, which the movies have insisted in lightening up a bit, that she weighs 118, that she decided to give up her dancing studio, or rather her chain of dance studios in Weatherford, Ranger, Fort Worth and Mineral Wells and try for something in Hollywood..."

"She went to school, grade and high, in Weatherford, then went to Ward-Belmont in Nashville, Tenn. It was there when she was a little over 15 she was secretly married to a boy from Weatherford who came up to see her. She slipped off from school, was married, then hurried back to a French class, and didn't see her husband for three months. When she went home she announced it to her parents. She was married about two years, and has one son, Larry, 8, but the marriage didn't jell and she then began her dancing classes."

"She was looking forward to coming home to Weatherford for the premiere of her picture, The Great Victor Herbert, but Mrs. Andrews says that the whole family, including Mrs. Martin, who with young Larry, makes her home in California with Mary since Mr. Martin's death, have feared something would happen to spoil the family reunion. And sure enough it did. Her New York, Boston, Chicago and Detroit personal appearance dates have made it impossible, but she has not given up hoping she can return to Texas soon. Here's hoping."

Note: One year was taken off Mary Martin's age. She was born in 1913, was 16 when married to Ben Hagman, and she got her mother's permission to do so. At least that's the official story. Since it is unlikely she graduated from high school at 15, a birthdate of 1913 seems to be true. And there certainly was less that a three month delay between Mary and Ben's marriage and the next time they saw each other, based on the wedding date, 11/3/1930, and Larry's birthday, 9/21/1931. Also, they were married for six years, not two. - LM

"Illness of her father will cancel plans for a reunion in New York Christmas of the young star, her 7-year-old son, and her mother and father. The Preston Martins and the boy were to have left for New York Dec. 15."