DALLAS
ARTICLES
Patrick Duffy
was JR's brother Bobby Ewing.
What's he been up to?:
Patrick went on to enjoy professional success with the US
sitcom Step By Step and he recently appeared in the West End
production of Art.
Personally,
however, he experienced tragedy when his parents were brutally
murdered in 1986 at their bar in Montana. His commitment to
Buddhism helped him overcome the crisis and now, at the age
of 53, he lives on a ranch in Oregon with wife Carlyn.
Patrick too struck up a close relationship
with Larry Hagman on the Dallas set. He recalls: 'Hagman walked
in dressed all in fringed leather, with a giant big hat, huge
hat, and big saddle bags. And in the saddlebags were stuffed
bottles of Champagne.
'So before any of us read a word of
the script the glasses were passed out and we popped all the
Champagne. It became a cocktail party atmosphere and that
maintained itself for 13 years.'
One of Patrick's biggest storylines
was the shower scene comeback after he'd taken a break from
the show in 1984.
'The shower scene, no cast member knew
what was going to happen, including Victoria [Principal, who
played Bobby's wife Pam]. 'Nobody knew how I was coming back
on the show.
'Pamela goes in and she knocks on the
door and she talks to her husband, and then he gets dressed
and then he goes off to work. But Leonard Katzman [the producer]
knew what he wanted to do. He then filmed me separately with
the shower door opening, me turning and saying good morning.'
Katzman hired a crew who had nothing
to do with Dallas to film Patrick in what the crew believed
to be an advert for Irish Spring Water.
'Leonard took that little piece of
me, edited it into the show and hand delivered it to New York
for broadcast,' says Patrick.
'And when we watched the show in my
house that night, I was thinking, where's this scene coming?
'Victoria wakes up in bed and she walks
around and we hear the shower. I'm thinking oh no, oh no and
she opens the door. She's not even in that scene, if you notice
it was cut without her ever seeing who was in the shower.
Then it cut to me inside of the shower, I turn and say good
morning!
'Well, I probably counted to thirty
and the phone rang, and it was Victoria, and she's going 'I
can't believe it, I can't!' She had no idea it was going to
be that. I thought it was brilliant!'
|Larry
Hagman|Victoria Principal|Linda
Gray|PatrickDuffy|
