Dallas' Patrick Duffy Reveals How Larry Hagman Convinced Him to Return With Shocking Twist
Dallas fans have Larry Hagman to thank for Patrick Duffy's memorable return during season 9.
Duffy, now 77, notably left the CBS primetime soap opera after his character, Bobby Ewing, was supposedly killed in a car crash during the season 8 finale in May 1985. One year later, in a shocking twist, Bobby appeared in the final moments of the May 1986 season 9 finale, cheerily greeting his ex-wife Pam (Victoria Principal) while taking a shower. When season 10 premiered in September 1986, fans learned that Bobby's death and the entirety of season 9 had all been a dream in Pam's mind.
Behind the scenes, Duffy fully intended to leave Dallas, but Hagman-who played Bobby's brother J.R. Ewing-"was upset" that he wasn't on set anymore because the two "loved working together."
"When Larry Hagman called me and said, ‘Come out to Malibu, I want to talk to you,' I knew exactly what he wanted to talk about," Duffy recalled in a Television Academy interview published on Tuesday, May 12. "I turned to my wife at the time and said, ‘They're going to ask me to come back on the show.' She then said, ‘You can't come back unless that last season was a dream.' Now, they didn't take her idea, but she had the same concept that [showrunner] Leonard Katzman had. ‘It was all a dream,' that was Katzman's idea-start to finish. Hagman didn't even know; he just knew that he wanted me back."
Duffy and Hagman kept in touch after the former's exit from Dallas, with Hagman informing his pal about what was happening with the show.
"I knew the ratings [had dipped] only because my agent was talking to me [about it], and I knew people weren't happy because Hagman and I almost talked at least once or twice a week," Duffy recounted. "He'd say, ‘Patrick, this is terrible. I'm not having any fun anymore.' I said, ‘I'm sorry, buddy. I'm just trying to make a go of it here on my own.'"
When Duffy met up with Hagman to discuss his potential return, it didn't take much convincing.
"Well, first we got drunk. We went to a Mexican restaurant in Malibu, and all he had to say was, ‘Damn it, come on back.' I said, ‘OK,' and that was it," Duffy remembered.
After speaking with Hagman, Duffy heard Katzman's pitch about Bobby's return.
"Honestly, I would have done anything," he confessed. "He could have said, ‘I'm gonna put reindeer antlers on you, strap you to the front of a truck and we'll say you were wounded.' It didn't matter to me, I just wanted to come back home."
To keep the circumstances of Bobby's return a secret, Duffy filmed two fake scenes for the finale, one in which he removed bandages from his face and another in which he was revealed to be Bobby's twin brother. As for the shower scene, Principal, now 76, shot her part-where Pam opened the door to see Bobby-without Duffy, so she didn't learn that her character discovered him in the shower until the episode aired.
"I was happy to come back. Hagman was happy to have me back. I have since found out, however, that some of the fanbase was not upset that I was coming back, but rather that they felt shortchanged by having invested a year [that was erased]," Duffy said. "But they didn't leave-the ratings came back."
Duffy and Hagman later reunited for the Dallas revival, which aired on TNT for three seasons from June 2012 to September 2014. During production on season 2, Hagman died of complications from acute myeloid leukemia in November 2012 at age 81, with Duffy at his bedside.
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This story was originally published May 12, 2026 at 7:23 PM.