Hagman’s Prognosis Good After Liver Transplant : Medicine: ‘Dallas’ star and resident of the upper Ojai Valley got the new organ ‘just in time,’ his doctor says. He’s in critical condition.

Actor Larry Hagman was in critical condition Wednesday after receiving a liver transplant, but his surgeon gave the upper Ojai Valley resident a good prognosis.

After performing 15 hours of surgery, Dr. Leonard Makowka said he discovered Hagman’s cirrhosis was more advanced than previously thought, but that a cancerous tumor threatening his liver was halted by a special procedure in which doctors stopped blood flow to the area.”I can tell you he really did get the liver just in time,” said Makowka, director of transplantation at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Hagman, who played J.R. Ewing on the popular nighttime soap opera “Dallas” and Air Force Capt. Tony Nelson on “I Dream of Jeannie,” was resting in the hospital’s intensive care unit, the doctor said.

Given the extent of the cirrhosis, caused by prolonged alcohol consumption, Hagman had less than six months to live before receiving the new liver, he said.

Since being placed on the United Network for Organ Sharing’s national waiting list last month, Hagman has been wearing a beeper used to notify patients when an organ becomes available. The beeper went off Tuesday night.

The 15-hour procedure took longer than usual, Makowka said, because he had to construct a “new anatomy,” including blood vessels, around the liver area.

During the surgery, Makowka found Hagman had gallstones. He said the actor planned to give them to New York artist Barton Benes to become part of a sculpture. Hagman and his wife have collected the artist’s work for nearly 30 years.

Although doctors typically expect some sort of rejection after transplants, liver recipients at the hospital have an 88% one-year survival rate, and a 75% five-year survival rate, the surgeon said.

Hagman, who owns a 30-acre ranch in the upper Ojai Valley, has been active in Ventura County affairs.

He helped lead an unsuccessful fight against a National Weather Service radar tower on Sulphur Mountain, and he recently donated a signed copy of a “Dallas” script to be auctioned as a fund-raiser for the Ventura County campus of Cal State Northridge.

Hagman’s family has asked that supporters make donations to the national organ network or the Southern California Organ Procurement and Preservation Center in lieu of gifts for the actor.