Linda Gray on Dallas hijinks and playing the first transgender character on TV

[TMC]

http://www.avclub.com/article/linda-...-transg-226556

Dallas (1978-91; 2012-14)—“Sue Ellen Ewing”

The A.V. Club: Let’s start with Dallas, what most people remember you from. When we talked to Patrick Duffy for this feature, he just raved and raved about you and said that you and he and Larry Hagman were the Three Musketeers. You guys were best friends.

Linda Gray: That’s what they called us. And I have this wonderful picture of the three of us in London when the reboot happened, that’s framed. It was almost like Larry orchestrated it, knowing that devilish little guy. Ask any actor, and they want to die on stage or doing what they love to do, and I think that Larry held out. And when he got the reboot it was like, “Oh wow, he’s back.” He’s back playing the part he was put on the planet to play, in my estimation, and he did it. It was his; that was the fun part. But the best part was being back with friends after we’d been on hiatus for 20 years. A very long hiatus. That was the cool part.

AVC: Was he kind of a prankster on the set?

LG: The two of them were very bad, Patrick and Larry. Bad in the most adorable way. We had these dinner scenes in the original show, and we never had one in the new show. I think they were terrified of what would happen. Because at these big Ewing dinner-table things, Patrick and Larry would be bored, because it took forever. You know, they’d take the master and then they’d take everybody’s close-up, and it was really boring and it was all day and we were just like, “Oh God, is this thing ever going to be over?” So Patrick and Larry would pick up a dinner roll and they’d put it on the fork and they’d hit the end and it would fly across the table and the other one would catch it. And Miss Ellie, Barbara Bel Geddes, would just always yell, “Stop it. Stop it!” in her very East Coast voice. And then everybody would laugh and the directors would go crazy because there was no work getting done and we were all laughing and behaving like 5-year-olds or 3-year-olds. So it went on and on like this. It was just crazy. Every time we’d see written a dining-room scene, we would cringe, because it was like, that’s going to take all day and we were just going to get nothing done. So they were both pranksters. Things happened every day. People say, “What was the most memorable?” Neither Patrick and I can’t think of one, because it just morphed into many many things, all the time. So that was the fun part for us.

AVC: Duffy also said that since Dallas didn’t have a lot of laughs and the scenes you were doing were so tense and drama-filled, you all had to let off a lot of steam every time the cameras were off.

LG: Oh, yeah. And that’s what made it magic. I think you can’t just be dramatic on and off camera, because I don’t think there’d be any drama. It would be boring. So I think that actors have to have that escape valve, that pressure cooker. Something has to let out.

Because Larry and I would be just silly. He had a scooter. Like an old-fashioned scooter that you would pump with your leg, you know, you stand on the thing and pump with your other leg. We’d be in full makeup, me in hair, and the dress and high heels, and he’d say, “Come on, let’s go for a ride.” And we’d jump on the scooter and around the lot where we were filming, the old MGM studio. I would jump on the back of his scooter and we’d just go around visiting people and then they’d come and get us and say, “Okay, you have to come back now, we’re ready for you.” And I think the director was just staring at us, like, “I will never ever get this scene done because they’re children. They’re children and they’re not behaving.”

So the minute he’d say “action,” we would turn into Sue Ellen and J.R., and the director was in shock. It was like, “Oh my god, they can really act. They can do something.” Because I think the play made it a contrast. It was essential. Like in life, you can’t just be one note all the time, because it would be boring. So it wasn’t planned, but I think it really came across on screen because we weren’t in one mode all the time.

AVC: You two obviously had such a strong sense of trust with each other. You were doing really emotional scenes, and you and Larry Hagman always seemed like an absolute unit, no matter whether J.R. and Sue Ellen were divorced, or fighting, or whatever. You two were solid.

LG: Yeah. You said the right word. It was the trust element. We’re actors, we have to do what we have to do, and you have to be really solid within yourself. But you also have to know that partner that you’re playing tennis with, across, or ping-pong; Larry and I were like ping-pong. We were like, man, it was fast and crazy. But the good news is that’s what kept the magic alive. We never knew what the other was going to do. It was basic chemistry that a lot of people wish for in that partnership; there’s that chemistry that you can’t bottle. You can’t put it in any context other than it is what it is, and I was blessed. I was blessed to have Larry.

AVC: You were brave then to take on directing episodes on that show, knowing all the hijinks that you were going to have to corral by going behind the camera. How did that come about?

LG: I wrote a very long piece about it in my book because I felt that, in the end, that it would help women directors. And it has. I was very truthful in my book. And what happened was, at the end of season eight I went to my producers—it was the time to negotiate for the next two years—and I said, “I would like to direct.” I had been studying with a French woman director, whom I adored. And I said, look, I don’t want to go in there and say, “I want to direct and and you’re going to let me direct, blah blah blah.” I didn’t want to be that person. I wanted to go in with a solid bag of my solid work, my homework, and I did it. I said to my director I was studying with, “Tell me when you feel that I’m ready.” So after a long time, she said, “Okay. You’re ready.”

So I went in at the end of season eight and I said, “I’m really tired of Sue Ellen drinking and having affairs. And the world is changing and women are changing and I really would like to direct.” And I said, “I don’t want money, I’m not asking for money, I’m just asking to direct one in 52 episodes. The next 52.” And they said no.

AVC: Wow.

LG: And they said, “Is that your final negotiation?” You know, it’s a lot more involved, but the bottom line is, I said, “That’s it. That’s what I want. I’m not asking for more money, blah blah blah.” So they said no. And so I said, “Well, okay.” And so basically I was fired at the end of season eight.

So I told Larry, “I’m not coming back.” And he said, “What do you mean you’re not coming back?” So he went in, and he said, “If she goes, I go.” So that’s another Larry Hagman prankster, right? Coming from a good place, but still, Larry Hagman would never have left that show. Even if everybody left. Anyway, it sounded good, it made him feel good, he kind of puffed up, and in my head I can envision him riding in in a white Stetson on a white horse, saying, “I’ll save the day.” And it didn’t matter to me. I didn’t care. I said, “If I’m fired I’m fired. If they take me back, great.”

So they hired me for one. One episode. And so I stepped up, did it, and I felt that it would be great for future young women directors.

AVC: It looks like you did a few more after that?

LG: Yeah! Well, because they liked what I did. It was great for women, because I did it, and that was in the ’80s. I speak to young women directors now, and it’s still a male industry. So they’re inching toward it, but I thought it would be better by now.

[MichaelKeith]

Interesting article. Thanks for posting, TMC.