Dallas: Discussion Thread

[Liberty City]

Audrey Launders looks stunning.

[Chris 2]

Audrey still looks great, as she did when she appeared on TNT Dallas a few years back (too bad they completely misused her, but that’s a topic for another day).

Dallas, post-Pamela, is a dud. She wasn’t killed off in the original series because they were afraid of doing that after the fiasco surrounding Bobby’s death and resurrection. So they kept the door open by having her severely burned in an accident and leaving town. It was actually the worst way to get rid of her because it made her character seem extremely callous for abandoning her child, and the other characters looked just as bad for not visiting her at the hospital and not really giving a fig about her departure (“Oh, too bad about Pam. Teresa, what’s for dinner?”)

Both Bobby and Pam’s departures were a chance to reinvent a show that was running out of storylines. In both cases, the showrunners failed to find a compelling new direction for the show. Bobby’s departure should have resulted in a JR vs Pam dynamic, but they got sidetracked with silly stories about emerald mines, and tonally-wrong stories about special needs kids. And Pamela’s departure could have set off a mystery around her disappearance, or they could have had her presumed dead and gone the Dark Shadows route of introducing a young nanny for Christopher who gets caught up in the intrigue of the family. Instead, they just tried to keep doing the same show with a giant Pam-sized hole in it. Boring!

[DemetriKane]

@SoapDope thanks for Posting this interview. Aston was one of my favorites, goes to watch.

@Chris 2 You nailed it sir.

[DemetriKane]

Can I say how irritated I get when host break up there interviews into short multiple parts.

[Franko]

A real find has turned up on YouTube! When Joan Rivers attempted to prank call Victoria Principal.

 

[SoapDope]

Ken is squirming as Joan keeps dialing Victoria. He was probably thiking " There will be hell to pay with Victoria if I get involved with Joan's shenanigans. He kept telling her " We get along" There is a clip of Joan interviewing Victoria herself  a few years prior (around 1983) and Joan pretty much tells her to her face through jokes that she thinks she is a gold digging bitch and slut who lies about her age. She accuses Victoria of being born in the 1940's instead of 1950. She also rips on her for dumping Andy Gibb.

I always thought Victoria seemed to be a nice down to earth woman much like her character Pamela Barnes Ewing, but over the years I have seen clips, interviews etc...with other cast members that paint quite a different picture. I saw a Mike Douglas clip where he asks Steve Kanaly and Joan Van Ark about rumors of Victoria and they kind of danced around it saying she was a strong woman who knew what she wanted and was a loner etc...Audrey Lander seemed to dance around that question as well in the above interview clip. A few years ago Victoria pulled a gun on her maide over a dog. Yikes !

[Soaplovers]

Dallas in the first part of the 80s did a great job of bringing new blood onto the show (Clayton, Afton, Katherine, Rebecca, Donna, Mickey, etc)..but by the mid 80s, that changed.

Speaking of Afton, this clip shows how she functioned quite well as a grey character.  Neither good nor evil. 

 

 

[FrenchBug82]

It is funny because in the past I was a bit put off by the Landers' reputation as being a bit attention-hungry but with hindsight I actually really liked Afton. She had a nice energy that balanced the awfulness around her and the show needed that more, I think.

 

Yeah... That's why I don't think the story of her firing/departure was totally her being a victim of sexism.
They definitely should have given her equal billing to Duffy BUT knowing what kind of energy she was bringing behind-the-scenes, I suspect denying her that was not just about sexism.
It was also about sending a message to her, I believe, that was as much about her as it was about her being a woman.
There is no question the trope about the same behavior being called "strong-willed" for a man and "difficult" for a woman is entirely true. But that doesn't mean that it is not possible for a woman to be genuinely... difficult and I believe VP must have been a pain in the ***

[SoapDope]

It's been 30 years since the original show went off, but other cast member seem to be afraid to piss off Victoria. What I can gather is she was the closest to Ken Kercheval out of the cast. John Beck (Marl Graison) said he preferred working with Linda Gray than Victoria. 

[Chris 2]

I know Morgan Brittany implied that they did not get along. Same thing with Morgan Fairchild, who only appeared in a single episode!

Victoria participated in the 2004 retrospective that was filmed at Southfork and something apparently happened there between her and her cast mates that really strained the relationship. Exactly what, I don’t know. 

She had nothing to do with TNT Dallas. She originally wasn’t asked, but then the writers started hinting that Pam might still be alive, and Victoria released a statement about how she was not interested in making a “desperate reappearance” in the new series. I’m sure that went over big with her former costars.

That said, she phoned into the gathering they did for the 40th anniversary that appeared on the most recent DVDs. And she seemed to enjoy reminiscing and Patrick was joking with her and she was laughing with him. So who knows.

[SoapDope]

I did see the phone call for the 40th. I notice most of the cast does not sing her praises like " Victoria was a lot of fun, or me and Victoria use to hang out etc....It is implied that after she filmed her scenes, she was off living her private life and did not pal around with the rest of the cast. It also appears she was very vocal behind the scenes. There was a People magazine interview with her for the 40th where she said she was an outsider/loner and the rest of the cast was married with families of their own. She had different interests and focused on her acting career and business ventures (cosmetics etc...).

A lot of people became disenchanted with her after she had a very public break up with Andy Gibb. She quickly married Dr. Harry Glassman shortly after while Andy spiraled out of control with drug addiction. The public blamed her for his drug problems and eventual death. 

Joan Rivers stated she had Victoria's number and called her bitch. 

[FrenchBug82]

Have we ever had any gossip on anyone else being problematic or disliked on the Dallas set - regular or guest-star?

[Chris 2]

Susan Howard sang Victoria’s praises because she said Victoria went out of her way to help a child with a cleft lip that Howard knew get plastic surgery. Charlene Tilton said Victoria was like a big sister to her when they were filming on location during those early years. But no one has said she’s a barrel of laughs.

The actress who played Teresa, the maid, said that Barbara Bel Geddes could be irritable with her. But she loved Bel Geddes anyway.

Dack Rambo and Larry Hagman didn’t get along. From an interview with Washington Post: 

But Larry Hagman -- with whom he had already worked on "Sword of Justice" -- turned out to be "not a particularly nice person," Rambo recalls. "I didn't like him very much. And I think the feeling was probably very mutual. I didn't really fit into the mold of what he considered male or macho. It was just very clear to me I wasn't going to be part of the family."

[SoapDope]

I take it Larry was a lot like George Peppard. Their sets were a mans world/playground. The year Patrick Duffy and Leonard Katzman were gone the women were getting a lot of screen time and meaty storylines. Larry raised hell about that with Lorimar and wanted Patrick and Leonard back so they could go back to their playground antics. Katzman was given full control of the show by Lorimar and Phillip Capice was ousted. The show never really recovered from that it's all a  dream crap and Victoria and her character Pam became a laughing stock.  

I also feel Victoria resented having the show that was built around her character being re-built around J.R & Sue Ellen after the first 5 episodes. She commented in an interview " That Pam was cleaned up from what she originally was". 

 

 

[Paul Raven]

It was no secret that Larry was a drinker and I can imagine a certain boys club atmosphere on set. All fun and games for those in on it and not much for those who weren't.

Larry knew that Dallas was his final reward and he rode it for all it was worth.

I guess Barbara was treated with the respect she deserved and Linda strikes me as one of those women who put up with the boys antics while quietly doing her own thing.

Victoria perhaps made her feelings known and got labelled as an uptight drag, just because she had little time for the frivolities.

I liken it to any workplace where some people treat it as an extension of their social life- eg 'drinks on a Friday night after work' and those who want to go home get pressured or ridiculed for not wanting to party...