Patrick Duffy says Dallas cast "started mornings with champagne & ended with tequila"

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https://people.com/patrick-duffy-tal...mories-8763356

Though they brought the drama on TV, the cast of Dallas knew how to have fun when the cameras stopped rolling.

During his very first podcast interview, Patrick Duffy gave a wide-ranging interview looking back on his successful television career.

After addressing a host of Internet rumors his former costars dug up about him (no, he was never a professional athlete, yes, he ruptured his vocal cords decades ago and never recovered), Duffy talked through a timeline of his TV hits, which began with the late '70s sci-fi series Man from Atlantis.

Once that show — which required the actor to perform challenging underwater stunts and learn how to dive — was canceled, he was immediately offered a host of roles, including parts on Lassie and The Young Pioneers. But it was Dallas that stood out: "it was a five-episode miniseries pilot," the 75-year-old recalled. "It was a no-brainer."

Of course it lasted much longer, airing for 13 seasons, spawning several made-for-TV movies and coming back as a reboot from 2012 to 2014.

Duffy remembered that the day the original cast met for the first time, they gathered at Warner Bros. studios. "And then Haggy came in, Larry Hagman," Duffy shared. "He came in a full cowboy fringe leather outfit, big hat, leather saddlebags over his shoulder — and in the saddlebags were bottles of champagne.

So we sat down and drank champagne before we ever started reading the pilots of Dallas, to get to know each other," he continued. "That was the the beginning of the relationship. But I remember being introduced to everybody, and and I shook Hagman's hand. And I went home that day after the whole process and I told my wife, I said, 'I think I met my best friend today.' "

Duffy said the two remained "best friends from that moment on, till the day he died." (Hagman died in 2012 at the age of 81.)

But as for the champagne, "when we started working, every morning that we would be working together on the set, we'd get a call time, usually, you know, 7, 6 o'clock call time. I would pull into MGM. We'd park the cars. We'd go to Hagman's room. We'd open a bottle of champagne. We'd have a glass of champagne every morning to start the day."

Though Duffy would "lay out" until lunch, "Haggy," he said, "would continue. And in the course of the day, he'd get through three or four bottles of champagne. Work. And then, you know, they'd break for lunch and so we'd go across the street, instead of the commissary, because they don't serve alcohol in the commissary. We went to the Backstage Tavern ... and we'd have a couple of drinks and a hamburger, and then come back and and do the second half of the day."

The actor said that as the years went on the cast could "judge when the show [was] about to wrap for the day." So then, they knew it "was the right time — we would catch the prop guy's eye and would just do this," he said, seemingly indicating a nod. "That was all, and then magically, a styrofoam cup would appear."

When asked by Keanan if that meant more champagne, Duffy said, "Oh no. We'd have a little shot of tequila before we wrapped because we knew it wouldn't kick in till they called wrap. And then, that was it. That was my work day with Hagman for 13 years. That was the '80s."