40 years on from the TV series, Dallas is much more than oil barons and big hats
Hello darlin’. It all started with Sir Terry Wogan on his Radio 2 breakfast show. His lilted barbs poking gentle fun at the billionaire Ewing family all living under the same roof with coat-hangers in their wardrobes helped propel Dallas, the oil rich saga that would become synonymous with the glamour and greed of the 1980s, from a slow burner on BBC One into the country’s most talked about show.
“If you picked it apart you could see how cheap it was. We had to wear our own clothes in the beginning,” laughs Linda Gray, (with me, right) now 77, and eternally famous for her portrayal of vodka-swilling Sue Ellen, the panda-eyed, downtrodden wife of the original rattlesnake himself, JR Ewing. “Terry [Wogan] was so wonderful to us all because on the Monday he would review the show after the weekend and tell everyone what had happened.”
It’s not the first time the cast and I have chewed the cud over the grand daddy of prime time soaps that became a phenomenon; the difference is, for the first time, I am sitting with Linda and her co-star, Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing), poolside at Southfork Ranch, the Ewing family’s fictional homestead and still a cherished tourist attraction.
Sweltering under my own stetson (I have several) in the noon heat I am, frankly, geeking out, basking in their anecdotes ahead of a three-day Dallas fan-fest to mark 40 years of the doings of the Ewings. I resist the urge to pepper them with classic lines even if my overwhelming desire is to dive into the pool, imagining I’m brawling at the annual Ewing barbecue.
It’s hard to overstate my passion for Dallas, the TV show that started in 1978 when VCRs were a mere twinkle in most viewers’ eyes. I was nine years old and would sit watching with my parents drinking Pepsi from a tumbler pretending it was JR’s favourite bourbon and branch. I still have video cassettes of the episodes, doubling up in later years with DVD box sets and digital downloads. Handy, given that all 357 episodes were my specialist subject on Celebrity Mastermind.
In the summer of 2012 I was invited to MC the cast party for the reboot of the series. It was the last time I would meet Larry “JR” Hagman before he died later that year. Among my most treasured possessions is a stetson he signed; priceless because Larry never gave out autographs, preferring to dish out printed dollar bills with his own image replacing that of Benjamin Franklin.
When my own father passed away two years ago, I took a road trip around Texas and laid a yellow rose at the gates of Southfork (about a 40-minute drive from downtown) as a nod to him helping me fulfil my childhood dreams, suspecting – as I am sure he did – at an early age that I’d rather rub shoulder pads at Neiman Marcus than Texas Stadium.
Patrick, 69, isn’t surprised when I tell him. “We get that a lot,” he says, harking back to a pre-multichannel, spoiler free era. “Our show was family event viewing. Children, parents, grandparents would sit down together and we hear so many stories like that from over the years.”
The cast’s love affair with the city of Dallas, where they filmed on location for two months almost every summer, is palpable, even if, as Patrick and Linda admit, the city has changed so much: “Apart from the people,” says Linda. “Such charm and generosity.”
The locals, too, enjoy basking in the legacy of the show – some more than others – but even the more reluctant are duty-bound to admit that the show is credited with putting the city back on the tourist map after its second most famous shooting when JR was gunned downed in 1980 by an unknown assailant in the most talked about TV cliffhanger of all time – 17 years after JFK met his maker in real life.
What isn’t a secret is that there is so much more to Dallas than its enduring place in American pop culture – and that’s why I keep coming back for more.
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I’ve introduced many friends to its charms over the years since my first visit in 1990 as a student, notably BBC Radio 4 presenter Eddie Mair for a landmark birthday of his. I told him the staff at our hotel were on manners to respond to me with whatever character name I gave them from the show rather their real names. It was a quip that was met with a Texas-sized eye roll, but he got it. When I’m in Dallas, I enjoy pretending I AM in Dallas.
Eddie and I stayed that year, as I have done for almost 10 years, at The Mansion on Turtle Creek, the original Rosewood property in uptown Dallas. It has the honour of having hosted the Dallas cast in the show’s heyday and HRH Princess Margaret and Larry Hagman once shared the same floor.
Checking into “The Mansion” is like staying with your dowager aunt, if she happens to be the heir to a cotton magnate’s fortune. The warmth of the welcome you’ll receive here – in a town that prides itself on its aptly named “Dallitude” – rivals any gusher hit by a hayseed-chewing wildcatter.
The service is world class, and the concierge team can meet every request from Lone-Star-State-shaped cookies and monogrammed bed linen to the best seats in the hottest spots anywhere in town, including its own superb restaurant: haute cuisine, Texas-style, and the best tortilla soup that will ever pass your lips.
I am a fanatical foodie when I’m travelling. If the nosh isn’t up to scratch or the martinis prove one olive short of the full dirty experience, then the server had better sleep with one eye open. It’s almost never happened to me in Dallas – apart from when I sampled a chicken mole recommended by friends (chocolate- covered chicken for the uninitiated). Happily, we’re still talking.
When it comes to eating out, Dallas is my mother ship, a city of gastronomic treats as broad as the corn is high. Posh nosheries jostle with dive bars, top chefs with tequila joints and – I promise – it’s not all about the BBQ. That said, you won’t be disappointed if you join the queue for the best smoked meats I’ve tasted at Pecan Lodge (right) in the hip Deep Ellum neighbourhood.
From Wolfgang Puck’s Five Sixty revolving restaurant at the top of Reunion Tower (you’ll recognise it from the opening credits), to chef Stephan Pyles’ Flora Street Cafe or the swanky Bullion (a new favourite of Linda’s) serving French cuisine under the eye of former Mansion culinary supremo Bruno Davaillon, you won’t want for event dining. If it is steak you’re after, or the best mac ’n’ cheese in town, head to Town Hearth, where the centrepiece is a 1962 Austin Healy.
For great Italian, try newcomers Mille Lire on Oak Lawn just a short walk from “The Mansion” or Fachini (a few minutes’ drive to shopping village Highland Park) where you’ll also find people lunching at Bistro 31 – try the olive cake, I insist. Other perennials are the excellent Le Bilboquet, a mere swagger from Turtle Creek, or Hattie’s, a long standing watering hole in the Bishop Arts district.
Worthy of a mention is new hotspot Sachet (sharing plates and great for vegetarians) a welcome addition to the Highland Park neighbourhood after a morning shopping and gawping at nearby mansions.
Delving into my black book further, for a contemporary Mexican experience, take in Jalisco Norte (uptown) to sup craft cocktails from authentic glassware (my tipple: The Palermo) and make sure you ask for a seat in the glass treehouse.
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Dallas, incidentally, is the home of the frozen margarita machine, invented in 1971 and the city has just launched The Margarita Mile (www.MargaritaMileDallas.com) for aficionados of the cocktail. Fret not, you can always work the calories off by jogging along the Katy Trail that runs three miles between uptown and Oak Lawn (worth it just for watching the pooches on parade, too).
Unmissable between dining experiences is The Arts District, the largest one in the US. Covering 19 blocks, it’s a mecca for performing arts and home to the Dallas Museum of Art but if you really want to draw breath away from the skyline’s gleaming spires, head to The Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden, an urban oasis boasting 66 acres of fabulous blooms throughout the year.
Meanwhile, back at the Ewing mansion, my reunion with Linda and Patrick is drawing to a close and I yearn to linger on a lounger but crowds are already starting to gather for the weekend’s fan event. I ask them what Larry Hagman would have made of it all.
“He’d have charged them,” laughs Patrick. “Dallas is the show that Larry built. He was unavoidable to watch. From the first scene, Larry set the tone for the next 13 years.” Linda smiles broadly: “And he’s here. It’s all about him. We laughed so much it should have been a sitcom. The funniest cast ever and the best of friends.”
I know how she feels. I’ve made many of my own in Dallas over the years – including Linda – so much so my other half thinks I have another family there. He’s right, of course. But that’s one cliffhanger that doesn’t need resolving here.
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Richard Arnold was a guest of Visit Dallas (visitdallas.com) and Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek. A night at The Mansion, including breakfast and taxes, costs from $375 (￡282).