Steve Kanaly who played cowboy Ray Krebbs on Dallas for ten years answered questions from fans on the Ultimate Dallas site.

 

 

Hundreds of questions came in so many thanks to all of you who put those forward for Steve and a huge thank you to Steve Kanaly for taking part.

Interviewer - Welcome to the Ultimate Dallas Star Chat with Steve Kanaly. Now for our first question

Pamela in Texas asks : Do you think that the story with yourself and Lucy would be portrayed in the same way now. It didn't seem to preach any moral , yet Lucy was a young girl and Ray a grown man. Nobody mentioned the age difference.

Steve : Considering all the terrible sex crimes that have taken place lately I don't know if they would portray it that way. But on the other hand I think a lot of the characters on Dallas were quite immoral to begin with and nobody understood that Lucy was related to Ray so it was one of those early steps that nobody gave enough thought to. Ray was JR's second helper and they got into all kinds of trouble to begin with in the mini series but shortly afterward when the series was picked up I tried to take the character in a new direction. It would be interesting to see that subject treated in some serious way today but I don't know if we treated it seriously at all at that time.

Interviewer - On the message board people have said one of the reasons they liked Dallas was because it didn't preach any morals and was more realistic in that way.

Steve - I thought at the time and have been asked over the years why was the show successful, one of the reasons I always refer to was that we were there to entertain, we were not preachy, this was all fantasy.

Seb in Australia asks What was your involvement in Apocalypse now? How did that come about?

Steve - I was acquainted with the writer John Milius who was a client of mine when I ran a small trap and skeet target range and John had been hired by Warner Brothers to write a screen play. I was also a Vietnam veteran serving in the First Air Cavalry as an Infantry combat soldier so John was interested in my experiences developing the Robert Duvall character. I was able to share with him some notes about a commanding officer I had , the whole bit about the playing cards on the bodies of the deceased enemy at Charlie's Point, a few other things like that were lifted from my experience. My contribution was small but specific.

Elizabeth Rose in New Zealand asks: What was Larry Hagman like to work with?, and did you have a lot of competition when you auditioned for the part of Ray Krebbs? Have a great day

Steve - I didn't know about the competition for Ray, the day I went in for the meeting with Lorimar I walked into a office that was filled with Lucy hopefuls, twenty beautiful young girls, and no other males were there reading for the part. I was not ware who the competition was but years later I discovered that Ken Kercheval really wanted to play Ray Krebbs and another very close friend of mine Martin Kove well known from the 'Karate Kid' movie really wanted to play him. Both those guys were considered. Larry was called the 'Mad monk of Malibu' and not without reason, a very fun kind of eccentric guy that was fond of wearing wild hats and he came to the the show with this wild enthusiasm and he came to the show with what we would call a 'bread van', a brown step up 'bread van' , we all hung out with him and he was sort of the natural leader, he was a Texan and knew his way around and done a TV series and he said "Let's all do this", from the very beginning we would all go over and hang out with Larry and do all these fun things together all through the filming of the mini series and that was a pattern we basically did all the years of the show.

Will Rodgers in Tennessee asks: I saw you play an attorney in a movie where Richard Thomas was a single man trying to adopt an orphan boy, but I can't remember the title.

Steve - The movie was filmed in Arizona in 1980, the Producer was Harry Thomason, and it was called 'To find my son'. I played an attorney opposite Richard Thomas who was a single parent trying to adopt a child. It was a very interesting movie and Harry Thomason went on to do a show called 'Designing Women' and he also produces a show today called 'Emeril', he's very close friends with former President - Bill Clinton

Will from Tennessee also asks - My favorite era of Dallas was the first three seasons when Jock was alive and there was more of a western feel to the show and the early episodes were self contained stories. What was your all time favorite episode or era of the show?

Steve - Those were mine too , there was a lot more Western stuff in those days, mostly because Jim Davis was alive then and certainly I thought there was going to be a lot of Western stories because that was one of the things I was very interested in the show for. At one point I was ready to leave the show because there was more and more business about the Oil business and JR's under dealings and bedroom and boardroom shenanigans and less of what I did, the Western lifestyle, Larry talked me into staying and one thing he did to correct that situation was we found out Ray Krebbs was Jock's fourth son. That is my favorite show because it meant a lot to me in terms of my career and position in the show, it was also a very powerful moment I had as an actor and with someone I really regarded highly - Jim Davis.

Jocelyn in New York asks : Have you been in touch with Susan Howard? why did she leave the show?

Interviewer - This question came up a lot, actually in the UK, Susan appeared on a talk show in 1987 and said she did not want to leave.

Steve - I do still see Susan and recently did a show for ITV and we went to Southfork. It really is a complicated answer and goes across another couple of questions. When Patrick left the show that was by choice, at the same time Leonard Katzman left the show and a whole new set of Producers came in, for those of us who remained it was an opportunity to say "Hey if you are looking for some story material I always thought this would be a good idea", so everybody did that, certainly Susan Howard and I did that. Of all the married couples on Dallas, Ray and Donna were perhaps the most normal and they had no children so they started to explore that story line, along the way Donna is pregnant and looses the child, then they consider adopting and explore that whole issue and end up adopting a profoundly deaf boy and it was very moving, powerful stuff. In the meantime Larry didn't like the way the show was going because it was now not centered as much on him as it was in the past , it was more about these social issues, he wanted his partner and fun guy Patrick back, not a bad idea we all love Patrick, and he also wanted Leonard Katzman back, so Larry pretty much engineered the whole thing. When it all came to be we had Leonard and Patrick and called the whole thing a dream , we knew that would piss a lot of people off, but that's what they decided to do, it was the cleanest , easiest way to start it over we thought, at least Leonard Katzman did and Susan got her feelings hurt and she said as much and she may of been outspoken to the point where there was some real friction between herself and Leonard Katzman and that could be what ultimately was the beginning of her leaving the show I would say. They were good friends and had done a show previously together called 'Petrocelli', they were very friendly and he brought her in, he definitely wanted her in the show.

Interviewer - There was another rumor in the press that the character of Donna was supposed to have an affair with another major character and Susan refused.

Steve - Yeah you know I don't have a specific memory about that but I will say that Susan is a devoutly Christian person and she takes her work and her life very seriously and maybe if Donna was cheating on Ray or something like that she probably said "I don't like that" but I'm just guessing.

Luke in Nova Scotia asks "Your main female costars on Dallas were Susan Howard and Charlene Tilton, and I guess Priscilla Presley. If you had your wish, which Dallas lady would you have paired Ray with"

Steve - Ray was with them all, I think back I was probably happiest in terms of what was going on with my character when Ray was single. At that point Ray was one of the only single guys and had a lot of flexibility. Ray and Lucy was very brief and was big brother to her later on and you forget they were in the hayloft together. Once Ray was married to Donna the character almost become the Ray/Donna character and the stories are so interwoven that it almost takes away from the individual story and becomes a couple story. In a big cast you are scrambling for a story line and you are hoping it comes your way and there were times I wished Ray was not married but Susan was of course a very close confidant, five or six years playing husband and wife together on the show. On the other hand I had a very wonderful year courting the Priscilla Presley character of Jenna Wade , one of the more sultry moments is a Hayloft scene with Jenna in my last year. If I had to choose one it would be very difficult so I would choose single. The joke around the set was that Ray had slept with everybody expect Miss Ellie and that's unconfirmed.

Interviewer - Of course Ray slept with Sue Ellen too

Steve - That's right and quite a few other single girls, Garnet Mcgee, Bonnie.

Interviewer - and there was the mad Connie

Steve - That's right, Michelle Scarabelli, she was great. I did a TV series with Michelle called 'Okavango'.

Mike Diaz in Miami, FL asks: What was it like working with the beautiful Priscilla Presley? Were you in awe of her since she was Elvis' ex-wife? Why did you and her leave the show?

Steve - No I was not in awe of her, the first ever day I worked with her, Patrick and I were at a place called Billy Bobs in Fortworth Texas and Priscilla came in there and we said "Lets all go to lunch" and we hopped in my car and we all had lunch and margaritas and a couple of beers and we came back in a very good mood...late. So if we were in awe we got over it very quickly. Priscilla was very anxious to fit in, she worked diligently and cared a great deal about making her character work and finding her place in the ensemble amongst all of us, and she did not have a lot of acting experience at that time , later I enjoyed directing her and in my last year on the show her work had really developed into quite a strong actress. We didn't know she was so good at comedy because after she left the show she was in films. We left the show because of money, the shows ratings started to slip and there is a licensing fee that the producing company gets from the television broadcasting network and each year that is based on the numbers of advertisers and dollars they get and so fourth , so they started to take less money for a show that started to cost more and more and Priscilla asked to leave because she wanted to do films, I was not supposed to leave and I ultimately got a call from their lawyer to my lawyer to say they were not going to pick up my contract which was a total surprise to me, when I complained to say what was going on the Producer said "Sorry, to save the body we have to cut off one arm"

Interviewer - But then you came back for the Ranch war episodes?

Steve - They were very nice, they had me in for five shows with George Kennedy and that was great. I also directed a show that year. It was one of those things, they had three brothers and the show could get on with two. It was really a question about money and you have actors on there forever and their salary keep inclining and you could buy five new guys for what they pay me.

Tripp DiNicola in Martinsburg, WV asks : Were you disappointed to see the relationship between Ray, Donna, and their adopted son Tony during 1985-1986 shattered due to the dream plot? I thought that story line was extremely powerful and the most poignant of that season.

Steve - It was fun to do those shows, it was really fascinating to work with the young boy who was deaf. Susan learnt to do American sign rapidly and my character, I thought he wouldn't do that, so I learnt to do an Indian , indigenous American way to communicate, that was really challenging and the boy was wonderful to work with. On the other hand there was something very comfortable about having Patrick back, Patrick is one of my closest friends from the show. I was thrilled to have him come back so it was a trade off.

Moe in Ireland asks : What was behind the decision to reveal Ray as Jock's secret son? Did you support the idea or would you have been happier remaining outside the Ewing family?

Steve - Well it was really my idea and thanks to Larry Hagman and Jim Davis. I was ready to leave the show and there was not enough for me to do and I was angry and frustrated and said "You know I don't need this, I have been in movies, Iv done other things and Im going to go on and I don't want to come back next year". Larry and I went to play racket ball one day and we had a few beers and he said "You don't want to quit, things are happening, what can we do to improve your story lines". One of things we threw around ,which was true, was I looked more like Jim Davis then he or Patrick did. We threw that at the Producers and they didn't bite on it immediately because of Rays previous involvement with Lucy and they pulled it. It was supposed to be in the second year in an episode where Jock had been wounded in a shoot out at a dove hunt, and in that episode there is a moment where he confides something to JR and it was originally in the script "Iv got another son" but they changed it to "I have another wife" to let the Ray Lucy relationship simmer down somewhat.

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