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Secrets of Southfork
Entertainment Tonight transcript: Saturday, February 5, 2000
Entertainment Tonight did a one-hour "behind-the-scenes" look at Dallas. A lot of this stuff you probably know, but some of it will surprise you. Here are the informational highlights:
Show background:
- Dallas was only supposed to be a five-part miniseries. [We all knew that.]
- JR Ewing was supposed to be a secondary character on the show, so Larry Hagman was thought of too much of a "star" for the role. He was also typecast from his "I Dream of Jeannie" days.
- Steve Kanaly was considered for Bobby's role. Bobby was supposed to die at the end of the mini-series.
- Charlene Tilton was 17 when the show started filimng. The producers wanted Stefanie Kramer [Hunter] for the part of Lucy.
- Mary Frann [Newhart] was supposed to be Sue Ellen. Linda Gray was eventually chosen. She talks about complaining to the producers about the fact that all she seemed to do was drink and have affairs, and they said "But you do it so well!"
- Priscilla Presley was refused a contract at first and after finding out the amount of work that goes in to starring in a drama series, she had second thoughts. Larry Hagman helped her along and made her feel comfortable.
- Patrick Duffy says that Larry carried the show and the cast for all those years and the show could have never been as successful without him. Charlene says she's amazed that he was never nominated for an Emmy.
- Patrick says he was always excited to go to work. His sentiments are echoed by Larry.
Focus on Victoria Principal:
- Vicki was targeted by deranged fans soon after the show started airing and had to hire personal security to be around her almost all the time.
- After starring in some movies, Vicki quit the acting business in 1975 and became a talent agent. She also had a weight problem which she eventually overcame.
- She also had to overcome her image as a party girl, after being romantically linked to people like Frank Sinatra.
- After a brief marriage to a younger man, she got involved with Andy Gibb of the Bee Gees. After Gibb started up with drugs, she dumped him. She says she still can't believe he's gone.
- She married plastic surgeon Harry Glassman and soon it'll be 15 years. Since the show, she's written books and hawks her skin care line.
Jim Davis, Linda Gray, and Ken Kercheval:
- Steve Kanaly talks about Jim Davis's constant battle with migraine headaches throughout his tenure on the show, which were eventually diagnosed as being the result of a brain tumor.
- Like most actors on the show, Jim Davis's career was heightened by the show. He was mostly a B-movie western actor up to that point.
- His death hit everyone hard, but especially Victoria, with whom he was very close. Vicki says that Jim had a daughter named Tara who died in a car accident as a teenager and bore a resemblance to her, which is why she thinks Jim always treated her like a daughter.
- Linda Gray talks about her well-publicized divorce in 1983 which caused a lot of distractions on the set and off.
- She says that after her time on the show, she felt like she had returned to Earth from another planet. She says she's getting better at dealing with her typecasting as Sue Ellen.
- Ken Kercheval had a former business associate crash the studio set in 1989 in an attempt to kidnap him and commit suicide. Fortunately, Ken wasn't even around the set at the time.
- Because of his heavy smoking habit, he lost half of his left lung in 1994.
- He says that what he's most amazed at is that more people would know him from one episode of Dallas than from all his other work combined.
Focus on Charlene Tilton:
- Charlene was told by the producers after the seventh season that her contract was not going to be renewed. The claim was that the writers didn't know what to do with her. [Duh.] But public outcry brought her back. [After four years?]
- Vicki remembers that she was really scared of the adult life when she started, and sometimes was afraid to sleep alone.
- Charlene remembers that there was zero catfighting on the set, despite tabloid claims to the contrary.
- She married country singer Johnny Lee in 1982 but it didn't last. Married again in 1985 for six years and then divorced.
- She left the show again in 1990 on her own terms.
- She became a designer of her own line and posed topless to promote it. Now she's a gossip columnist who tries to keep her work relatively clean.
- Her daughter Cherish is an aspiring actress.
Focus on Patrick Duffy:
- Patrick says he left the show to see where his work on Dallas would take him in the world, but the world wasn't ready. He did a mini-series and commercials but didn't enjoy it.
- He says he wasn't prepared for the effect the show's success would have on his private life and his family.
- Larry invited him to Malibu to invite him back on the show and his wife said the only way he could come back if the entire previous season was a dream.
- The "dream" concept was kept a secret from everyone. Patrick did an Irish Spring soap commercial for the whole day in this effort to fool people. Only the "Good morning" part of the commercial survived.
- His parents were murdered soon after he came back on the show, and the cast was very supportive.
- After the show, he went on to the comedy Step by Step almost immediately.
Focus on Priscilla Presley:
- Priscilla says she enjoyed being a housewife and didn't really think of herself as an actress.
- Talks about marrying Elvis and then divorcing him in 1973 because of the pill habit.
- Took acting lessons because she was so shy.
- She read all the tabloids about the backstabbing on the set but was surprised when it was so untrue. Linda Gray remembers that the rest of the cast was in awe of the fact that "Mrs. Elvis" was going to join them.
- She remembers getting her hair cut the day after doing a fight scene and then learned that the scene had to be recut, so she scrambled to find a wig.
- Her character on the show became pregnant so she decided to get pregnant.
- Left the show soon after the birth of her son in 1988, but then decided to have some fun in the Naked Gun movies.
Focus on Larry Hagman:
- The whole Who Shot JR phenomenon. Most of the cast talks about how they hate being asked that question. Vicki says she flew back to Los Angeles during that summer and the pilot threatened not to land unless she told him.
- Larry says he realized during the summer that this opportunity was his one chance to make it really big in the business so he said he wanted to renegotiate his contract and decided to hide in England to avoid the uproar. The producers threatened to replace him but everyone knew they could never do that.
- Everyone was filmed shooting JR. Linda Gray recalls almost spilling the beans on Good Morning America.
- Episode 58, when the killer was revealed was the biggest single TV event up to that point. Mary Crosby says it really vaulted her career.
- Larry then managed to get $ 100,000 an episode, beginning with the 1980 season.
- In 1995, he learned he had liver cancer after a lifetime of drinking and eventually had a liver transplant.
- Larry's become a great spokesman and campaigner for organ transplantation and is still very close to Patrick.