In a recent interview, the actor recalled how Larry Hagman convinced him to return to “Dallas” one year after leaving the series.
Patrick Duffy recently remembered how he ended up starring in one of the most shocking comebacks in television history, when his character, Bobby Ewing, reappeared after being killed in a car accident at the end of the show’s eighth season.
Duffy left “Dallas” in 1985 after seven years, wanting to pursue new projects, but without his character the show’s ratings plummeted, and the actor was eventually convinced by his co-star, the late Larry Hagman, to return.
In an interview with the Television Academy, the 77-year-old Duffy explained how Hagman, who played villain J.R. Ewing, persuaded him to come back to the series.
“When Larry Hagman called me and said, ‘Come to Malibu, I want to talk to you,’ I knew exactly what he wanted to discuss. I turned to my wife at the time and said, ‘They’re going to ask me to come back to the show,’” he said.
According to Duffy, his wife replied that it would only be possible if the entire previous season had been a dream, not realizing that this would become the writers’ exact solution to explain how Bob Ewing had returned from the dead.
Recalling his meeting with Hagman, Duffy laughingly told the publication that the two first got drunk together: “Well, first we got plastered,” he said. “After that, it was simple: we went to a Mexican restaurant in Malibu, and all he said was, ‘Damn it, come back.’ I said, ‘Okay,’ and that was it.”
After leaving viewers in suspense, the series returned to reveal that the entire ninth season had been a nightmare experienced by the character Pam Ewing, played by Victoria Principal, Bob’s wife.
According to Duffy, he was happy to reprise his role, but not everyone felt the same way: “I later found out that some fans weren’t upset about my return, but instead felt cheated for investing a year in a season that was erased.”
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