45 Years After “Who Shot J.R.?,” ‘Dallas’ Star Patrick Duffy Still Has a Lot to Say (Exclusive)
On March 21, 1980, Dallas wrapped up its third season with a doozy of cliffhanger, when J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) was gunned down in his office by an unseen assailant. For months, viewers were left on the edge of their seats wondering: Who Shot J.R.? Patrick Duffy, who played J.R.’s brother, Bobby Ewing, remembers thinking the twist was on brand for the direction in which the show was heading. “We were used to the goings-on in the writers’ room and in [producer] Leonard Katzman’s executive office, of dropping little bombshells all through the first two years of the show,” Duffy recalls.
“So, the shooting of J.R. seemed perfectly keeping in step with what Dallas was starting to be known to do. We thought it was a great idea, Larry thought it was a fantastic idea, and we just thought it would be a hell of a cliffhanger to end the season on.”
© Lorimar Television / Courtesy: Everett Collection
While Duffy says he expected the episode, titled “A House Divided,” to be impactful, he never could have imagined the cultural significance that ensued. “To the extent that we’re still talking about it 45 years later, no, and I don’t think anybody at that time did, either,” he notes. “We knew it would be big, because Haggie was the biggest television star in the world at that time, and the shooting of him only made him bigger. And then, not only did we have a hiatus where everybody was able to chew on who could have done it, but the actors went on strike and extended the hiatus from three months to six months, so the fervor just continued to mount.”
In the time between J.R.’s shooting and the reveal of his assailant that November, “Who Shot J.R.” became a global phenomenon, with international bookmakers laying odds on whodunnit, and T-shirts with “Who Shot J.R.?” and “I Shot J.R.” for sale across the country. “It was interesting, because it could have gone either way,” Duffy points out. “They could have gotten bored with it all, but it became a game, a fun thing for everybody. The merchandizing shows that everybody wanted to get in on the game and the odds and the fun of figuring out who might have done it. It put Dallas in a different stratosphere for television for the rest of our run.”
Who Didn’t Shoot J.R.?
Everett Collection
Duffy reveals that the cast was as in the dark as the viewers as were when it came to knowing who pulled the trigger. “Well, we had an idea who didn’t do it, because we knew that the major, original cast members of Dallas would not have been put in that position — there was too much at stake,” he explains. “You don’t want to turn off your audience, and the original members of Dallas all had huge fan bases. So, as much as everybody felt sorry for Sue Ellen [Linda Gray], if she actually tried to kill J.R., that would have been a different turning point in her character. Bobby would never have done it; I know that was never a consideration. It had to trickle down to some of the newer members of the cast.”
But to keep the shooter’s identity even more of a mystery, every cast member was filmed holding the gun. “A lot of them were just tongue-in-cheek, because Leonard had that sense of humor,” Duffy explains. “So Jock [Ewing, Jim Davis] shot him, I shot him, Victoria [Principal, Pamela Barnes Ewing] shot him — everybody took a shot at J.R., because in the mythical realm of the world that was Dallas, they all had some sort of reason to do it. We all had great fun going around the corner [of J.R.’s office] and faking shooting him.”
Duffy reports that Hagman had a good time playing into the frenzy, too. “First of all, Haggie and I were having too much fun together,” Duffy recalls. “We took trips together, we’d go fishing, we’d laugh and have a drink and toast our great good luck to be part of it. And every time we’d go anywhere, of course, there was a wake, not a mourning wake, but a wake like a boat wake of people behind us, wanting to know the answer to the question. We didn’t know, so we would have great fun with it.”
When it came time to resume filming, however, Hagman, whose popularity had only increased exponentially in the wake of J.R.’s shooting, wasn’t so quick to return to set. “Larry was nothing if not audacious,” observes Duffy. “The strike was finally over, and it was going to be revealed whether J.R. lived or died, not just who shot him. Larry had a seven-year contract, this was the end of year three, and he wanted to renegotiate.
“And Lorimar [Productions, the show’s production company] didn’t want to do it, so he just didn’t come back to work. The rumor mill was rife with opinions, many of which were started by Lorimar at the time — ‘We’re gonna recast J.R.’ They said that they were floating offers to Robert Culp to assume the role of J.R., but they knew in their heart, and Larry knew absolutely, that nobody was J.R. except Larry Hagman, and he just held out. He didn’t come back, and they finally folded. They gave him what he wanted, and he was at work the next day after they caved. He knew he was one day away from reporting to the set no matter what because he was a professional. He always knew he was coming back, but he also always knew he was going to come back victoriously.”
“It just keeps astonishing us”
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Once back in production, it was time to film “Who Done It,” the landmark episode that revealed the gunslinger. While viewers around the world had spent months trying to crack the case, Duffy didn’t join in. “I, for one, didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about it or trying to figure it out,” Duffy shares. “It was really left to the fan base that got into it.”
One of his co-stars, however, got a clue before the bombshell episode aired. “Now, I will say that Linda Gray figured it out before anybody else,” he adds. “The rest of the cast found out at a dinner that was hosted by Lorimar in a restaurant. We watched the show airing, and that’s when we found out who did it. But Linda knew who did it, because she had to do a voiceover prior to that airing that said, ‘Kristin [Shepard, Mary Crosby], it was you. You shot J.R.,’ and, when she was asked to do that, she went, ‘Oh, my God, I have the keys to the kingdom.’ She was super-paranoid, not paranoid in a bad way, but not to let it slip, because she was the only one who actually knew ahead of time.”
Everett Collection
That there is still buzz about Who Shot J.R. decades after it took place is very meaningful to Duffy. “We’ve been a party to that question for 45 years,” he marvels. “So, it just keeps astonishing us. I can speak for myself, and in a certain way for Linda, who’s a dear friend. We’re endlessly grateful that something like that has perpetuated the myth of Dallas. I say the myth because there are generations of fans of Dallas now that weren’t even alive when J.R. was shot. So, it has grown like a fungus that just keeps infecting people in a good way, a fun way, because it’s quite innocent, actually. It’s not the blood and guts and slash and hack of a lot of whodunits now. It was a fairly tame question, sort of like playing the board game Clue — it was Mr. Plum in the library with the lead pipe. It was a great deal of fun and I’m grateful, because it put Dallas on a different level and we all as cast members benefited from it.”
In the years that followed the storyline, Duffy says Hagman ultimately came up with a great response when fans posed the age-old question — one that nodded to his and Crosby’s Hollywood parentage (Crosby is the daughter of Bing Crosby, while Hagman was the song of singer/ actress Mary Martin, who originated the role of Peter Pan). “Larry always said that when he would get asked who shot J.R., he said, ‘Well, Bing Crosby’s daughter shot Peter Pan’s son,’” Duffy chuckles.
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