Dallas has always been my favorite television show, and it’s not just nostalgia. I was 12 when I started, then I chased every rerun from the beginning to the bitter end, plus the reunion movies and the TNT revival. It stuck to me like Texas dust. People say Dallas was about oil money and power, but underneath the shoulder pads and the scheming, it was about family—how a family fights like hell and still, somehow, sticks together. That wasn’t exactly my reality growing up, which is probably why I clung to it.
Everyone loved J.R., how could you not?, but my guy was Bobby. Bobby was the conscience of Southfork, the guy who tried to do the right thing even when the game was crooked. Maybe that’s how I like to think of myself: stubborn about doing right, even when it’d be easier to play dirty.
So when I went to the Southfork Experience in Richardson, Texas, and met a good chunk of the cast while on vacation, it felt like closing a loop that started in my parents’ living room. Meeting Patrick Duffy was up there with meeting Mike Eruzione or Mark Messier, heroes from the screen and the ice alike. I told Patrick how awful the season was when they killed Bobby off; he agreed, and hearing that from Bobby himself was strangely therapeutic.
Linda Gray was there too. She’s almost 85 and looks incredible. I asked her for the secret, expecting some fitness routine or a diet plan. She just smiled and said, “Enjoying life and being happy.” That’s a prescription I can get behind.
And I made sure to find Charlene Tilton. I asked her about hosting Saturday Night Live, the infamous night when Charles Rocket dropped the F-bomb on live television. She laughed, gave that knowing nod only someone who lived it can give, and shared a quick, gracious memory of the chaos of live TV. It was a reminder that even legends have unscripted moments.
Standing at the Dallas area hotel, shaking hands with people I’d watched for over forty years, I realized why Dallas still matters to me. It wasn’t just the cliffhangers or the theme music; it was the idea that family, however messy, can still be an anchor. Meeting the cast wasn’t just fan service, it was personal history, paid off in handshakes, quick conversations, and one simple truth from Linda Gray: enjoy life and be happy. Bobby would approve.
