Morning Man Classic: Patrick Duffy!

Patrick Duffy was one of my early TV crushes – the McDreamy of his day.

Patrick turned 74 earlier this week and he’s in a happy period in his personal life as he began a relationship with actress-singer Linda Purl in 2020. Duffy’s wife Carlyn Rosser died in 2017.

He still works regularly in television with recent guest roles on NCIS, All Rise, Station 19, and The Cool Kids.

He had a recurring role on the NBC comedy Welcome to Sweden 2014-15 and three seasons as Bobby Ewing on the TNT reboot of Dallas which was cancelled in 2014 . He also had roles in the TV movies Trafficked, The Christmas Cure, Hollywood Darlings, The Green Knight, and Lady of the Manor.

From 2006-11, Patrick played the role of Stephen Logan on the CBS daytime soap The Bold and the Beautiful.. He had followed his decade-plus run on the original Dallas by starring for seven years on the ABC sitcom Step By Step with Suzanne Somers.

He made his first big splash on television in the late 1970s as the amphibious superhero on Man From Atlantis. But it was his role as Bobby Ewing on Dallas that made him a household name. He starred with Larry Hagman, Victoria Principal, Linda Gray and the rest of the prime-time soap’s large cast during most of its historic run from 1978-91.

After a few years, Duffy decided to leave the show and filmed a scene in which he “died.” Fans were upset at his departure, he recalled when we spoke this week.

“After the episode aired, a few days later I went shopping and a woman accosted me in the parking lot of Gelson’s,” he told me when we chatted in 2008. “She was wailing and crying and saying: How could you die?”‘

Duffy was persuaded to return to Dallas, and writers had to figure out a way to bring him back. In a plot twist that required viewers to suspend disbelief, writers made his death and the entire 1985-86 season, a really bad dream. He was reintroduced to viewers when Pam Ewing (Principal) opened the shower door, sees Bobby lathering up and tells him of her nightmare.

“That resurrected another three years of my life on the show and I appreciated it to no end,” he said. “Anytime you can be even a small percentage connected to an iconic moment in TV, it’s like a little Medal of Honor. I feel the same way about the shower scene and I know Larry feels the same way about the `Who Shot J.R.?’ episode.”