Dallas E True Hollywood Story

[TMC]

[Steve_uk]

Originally Posted by TMC

Strange how similar the reaction was to the show in the USA and the UK, where this show aired on BBC1 on Tuesday nights in autumn 1978 and nobody took a blind bit of notice. Then with massive media hype it moved to Saturday night prime time and the legend was born.

[adamchandler]

i gotta watch this.

[TMC]

Dallas on "Dallas: The E! True Hollywood Story": It's intriguing

Ed Bark: 'Dallas' special intriguing, I must say
08/13/2000

By Ed Bark / The Dallas Morning News

Dallas: The E! True Hollywood Story,
8 p.m. Sunday, E! Entertainment Television

Brimming with stunning insights and revelations from a certain local newspaper's television critic, Dallas: The E! True Hollywood Story is destined to go down as the greatest program in television history.

OK, I lied.

Still, it's pretty good, even if star player Larry Hagman declined to be interviewed for this two-hour autopsy.

Love or loathe it, Dallas dominated the TV landscape during the first four years of Ronald Reagan's presidency. It became No. 1 with a bullet in 1980, when "Who shot J.R.?" evolved into an international guessing game. That's also the year yours truly got entwined in TV at The Dallas Morning News.

So from first-hand knowledge, it's no exaggeration when True Hollywood Story narrator Kieran Mulroney says, "Nobody dreamed that this simple cliffhanger would ignite a firestorm around the world."

CBS unleashed the fractious Ewings on April 2, 1978, premiering Dallas on a Sunday night to a passel of pee-yew notices.

"The critics were both appalled and intrigued," remembers series creator David Jacobs. "I don't think Dallas got any good reviews."

Didn't matter. It endured for 13 seasons, 356 far-fetched episodes and two latter-day reunion movies. And the Nov. 21, 1980 episode, in which the world learned that Kristin Shepard plugged J.R. Ewing, is the second highest-rated TV program ever, surpassed only by the Feb. 28, 1983 M*A*S*H finale.

The E! special accurately exhumes Dallas, digs up a little dirt and is genuinely worth watching.

"We'll enter a world where men were men and women were arm charms," says Mr. Mulroney, referring to the show's emphasis on the show's male cast members. Namely J.R. (Mr. Hagman), his brother Bobby (Patrick Duffy) and hapless Cliff Barnes (Ken Kercheval).

Leonard Katzman, the show's late executive producer, "hated women who were forceful, feminist and difficult. Hated them," according to supervising producer Howard Lakin.

My contributions were taped earlier this year while amused colleagues watched in The News' third-floor newsroom. Surprisingly, these words of wisdom permeate the program to the tune of 20-some "soundbites," some actually lasting 10 seconds or more.

What you'll see is a desperately dapper middle-aged man in a blue getup. The head, hardly lionesque, is topped with just enough poofed-up thinning hair to maybe make Michael Chiklis jealous. No makeup was worn or offered. Au natural, baby, with more inherent on-screen dynamism than, um, Chan Gailey.

You can learn lots, of course, whenever this guy's on-screen. Reflecting on the hot "Who Shot J.R.?" summer of 1980, Mr. Bark (courtesy title mandatory) remembers how "Larry Hagman's house in Malibu was absolutely jammed with reporters, to the point where Larry Hagman, if he moved, it was like just a crunch of 30 reporters moving en masse with him. His toilets overflowed and people had to go next door to Burgess Meredith's house to use the facilities."

This also was the party where a former reporter for the New York Post snuck upstairs to rifle through Mr. Hagman's bedroom dresser drawers before being caught and tossed. That particular information isn't in the E! special, but is provided here as a bonus.

Later in the program, Mr. Bark almost becomes animated while talking about Mr. Hagman's contract holdout during the "Who Shot J.R.?" frenzy. Word had it that CBS and Lorimar Television, which produced Dallas for the network, were prepared to bury Larry.

"The rumor was that he would have been shot in the face instead [of the chest] and re-emerge as Robert Culp," Mr. Bark reveals, laughing wryly. "I don't think that would have worked. I don't think that show could have worked without Larry Hagman. And Larry Hagman knew that."

E! also interviews a wide variety of Dallas actors and producers. Mr. Hagman and Victoria Principal aren't among them, but an accommodating Mr. Duffy helps to fill in many of their blanks. Lesser known Audrey Landers is interviewed at South Fork Ranch in Parker, still a draw for tourists and convention-goers.

Jared Martin, who played ladies' man Dusty Farlow for several seasons, nicely distills the show's mass audience appeal.

Dallas, he says, "was a kind of weird, odd, bizarre reflection of what was going on in the Reagan years at that time. America was just money mad. Dallas had a big taproot into the capitalist, pioneering soul of America."

The E! special is virtually without clips from Dallas, which currently is rerunning twice-weekly in big clumps on TNN (Tuesdays from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Fridays from 8 to 11 a.m.). But E! does have priceless footage from an old Dinah Shore show in which the entire cast mostly messes around. Mr. Hagman wears a headdress that he says he bought "when I was drunk in Great Falls, Montana."

Everybody guffaws, but it wasn't funny years later when Mr. Hagman's admitted heavy drinking left him at death's door. He beat the reaper with a new liver and then portrayed J.R. as a teetotaler in the Dallas reunion movies.

E! notes that Mr. Kercheval initially coveted the role of ranch hand Ray Krebbs, which instead went to Steve Kanaly. While auditioning for Ray, "I read the pants off that scene," Mr. Kercheval recalls.

Viewers also are told that the producers initially wanted someone else to play J.R., although they still won't say who. But The Complete Book of Dallas says Robert Foxworth had the part in his pocket before he demanded that J.R. be "softened." Luckily he didn't prevail. His eventual consolation prize was Falcon Crest, where he played wine magnate Chase Gioberti for six seasons.

Falcon Crest owed its existence to Dallas, which also spawned a spinoff, Knots Landing, and like-minded, broad serial dramas such as Dynasty and Flamingo Road.

The Ewings also put Hollywood in the mood to buy other series starring fictional Texans. Matt Houston lasted the longest and J.J. Starbuck proved to be the biggest embarrassment.

In today's TV, it's not considered smart, clever or "sophisticated" to build shows around Texas characters or anything approximating a Southern drawl. CBS' Walker, Texas Ranger is the lone reminder of times when boots were made for walkin' all over prime time.

The E! special serves to underscore how big Dallas became in times when long-dominant CBS, NBC and ABC were just beginning to feel the sting of cable TV. Those days weren't necessarily better, just bigger.

Or as the ever-opinionated Mr. Bark will tell you Sunday night, "You were out of the loop totally if you didn't know something about Dallas. If you just said, 'Oh, I never watch that show,' people would kind of look [at you and say], 'Well, I guess I'll go find someone who does then, because you're no fun.' "