Dallas' Patrick Duffy and Happy Days' Linda Purl are dating

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Dallas star Patrick Duffy, 71, reveals he has found love with Happy Days veteran Linda Purl, 65: 'I never thought I'd feel this way again'

Veteran TV actor Patrick Duffy revealed this week that he has found love again.

The 71-year-old Dallas star told People he is now dating 65-year-old Happy Days actress Linda Purl.

And the Montana native said they were brought together by an unlikely force: the coronavirus pandemic.

The blossoming relationship followed a tragedy in January 2017 when Duffy lost his wife of more than 40 years, Carlyn Rosser, to cancer.

According to the actor, he had come to terms with being a widower and had taken enthusiastically to being a grandparent.

But as the pandemic spread across the US, Duffy found himself in a group chat with multiple friends, including Purl.

The two were old friends who had fallen out of touch in recent years, but as their other friends began to leave the chat, soon it was just the two of them in regular contact.

'I’m in an incredibly happy relationship,' Duffy said of his new love.

But in order to make sure the sparks were really flying, the Step By Step star traveled across the country to spend time with Purl and quarantine together.

'I loaded up my car and drove 20 hours and ended up on her doorstep just to see if it was real,' he said.

Duffy sounded overjoyed with the state of his new romance: 'I never thought I’d feel this way again.'

The death of his wife is not he only tragedy he has face.

On November 18, 1986, during the height of his success on Dallas, Duffy's parents were slain by two teenagers, Kenneth Miller and Sean Wentz, during an armed robbery of their tavern in Boulder, Montana.

The two were convicted and sentenced to 75 years in prison, though Miller was paroled in 2007 and Wentz was released in 2015.

Duffy is best known for starring on Dallas from 1978 to 1985 and 1986 to 1991, where he played Bobby Ewing, the brother of Larry Hagman's J. R. Ewing.

His other major TV roles were in ABC's Step By Step (1991–1998) and the soap opera The Bold And The Beautiful from 2006 to 2011.

More recently, he reprised his character in a continuation of Dallas focusing on a younger generation, which ran from 2012–2014.

Purl's best known role was as Ashley Pfister in season 10 of Happy Days in the early 1980s.

She also portrayed the daughter of Andy Griffith's title character in the first season of Matlock, and occasionally featured as Pam Beesley's mother on The Office.

Purl has been married four times, first to Desi Arnaz Jr. from 1980–1981. She married the screenwriter William Broyles Jr. in 1988, but their divorce was finalized in 1992.

Purl was married to another screenwriter, Alexander Cary, from 1993 to 1999, and her most recent marriage was to James Vinson Adams from 2006 to 2011.