Nearly 40 years after one of the most shocking moments in television history, a Dallas star is revealing the extraordinary lengths producers went to in order to keep the surprise from leaking.
Patrick Duffy, 77, opened up about the infamous shower scene that brought his character, Bobby Ewing, back from the dead during a recent appearance on Steve Kmetko’s Still Here Hollywood podcast. The actor explained that producers staged multiple fake scenes, secretly filmed the real footage on another soundstage and even convinced crew members they were shooting a soap commercial.
The elaborate deception worked so well that even Victoria Principal, who played Duffy’s onscreen wife, didn’t know exactly what viewers were about to see.
Patrick Duffy Reveals How ‘Dallas’ Producers Fooled the Crew
Duffy famously left Dallas in 1985 after seven seasons, with Bobby Ewing dying after being struck by a car. But following a season without him, producers wanted the popular character back.
The solution was one of television’s most audacious plot twists: Bobby’s death, along with the entire season that followed, would be revealed as a dream experienced by his wife, Pamela (Principal).
According to Duffy, his own wife Carlyn Rosser had independently suggested the dream scenario before producer Leonard Katzman explained that he had the same idea. But Katzman faced a problem. How could they film Bobby’s return without the secret getting out?
“We’re going to film a couple of red herrings,” Duffy recalled Katzman telling him.
The production filmed approximately three fake explanations for Bobby’s return using the regular Dallas crew, hoping anyone who leaked information to the tabloids would spread the wrong story.
For the real scene, Katzman arranged something considerably more elaborate.
He rented a separate soundstage from a commercial production company in Los Angeles, where a shower had been installed in the middle of an otherwise enormous, mostly empty space.
There was also a case of Irish Spring soap.
Duffy explained that almost everyone involved in the shoot believed they were filming an advertisement for the soap brand.
“Those were the only people that knew that I was taking a shower,” he recalled of the small group involved in the production, adding that the crew members, apart from Katzman and the unit production manager, thought they were making an Irish Spring commercial.
The Famous ‘Dallas’ Shower Scene Was Filmed Over and Over
The deception required considerably more work than the actual scene.
Duffy explained that the moment viewers would eventually see was incredibly simple: Pamela opens the shower door, Bobby turns around and says, “Good morning.”
But filming only those few seconds would have raised suspicions among the commercial crew.
“We couldn’t do that because somebody would go, ‘Wait a minute, we’re doing a commercial. Commercials take a long time,'” Duffy explained.
Instead, Katzman had the actor repeatedly perform a mock soap commercial, complete with dialogue about starting the morning with Irish Spring. The producer even pretended to find problems with the placement of the soap, forcing the crew to shoot additional takes.
Duffy recalled that they continued filming throughout the day despite having captured the footage they actually needed almost immediately.
“I knew take two, we had what we needed,” he said.
The secrecy didn’t end when filming wrapped.
“It was like a James Bond film,” Duffy recalled, explaining that the footage was hand-carried to New York and inserted into the broadcast feed shortly before the episode aired.
Even Victoria Principal Didn’t Know the Full Surprise
The Dallas season finale aired on May 16, 1986, ending with Pamela discovering Bobby alive in the shower, apparently undoing an entire season of storylines.
According to Duffy, the version prepared for broadcast originally featured another character, Mark Graison, played by John Beck, in the shower. That footage was replaced with the secretly filmed scene of Bobby.
Even Principal was surprised by the final edit.
Duffy recalled that the actress had expected her scene of getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom to appear earlier in the episode. When it didn’t, she assumed producers had simply removed it.
Instead, the footage appeared during the final minute, leading directly into Bobby’s return.
Duffy also pointed out a tiny editing detail that eagle-eyed viewers can spot: Pamela reaches for the shower door in one shot, but the next shot shows the door opening without her hand visible.
The actor said the plan succeeded in keeping Bobby’s return under wraps.
“Nobody. Not a single person. At least that I know of,” Duffy said when asked whether the surprise had leaked before the broadcast.
Four decades later, the moment remains one of television’s most memorable cliffhangers, and Duffy still finds humor in the lengths producers went to protect it.
After Kmetko joked that his name made him a natural fit for an Irish Spring commercial, Duffy agreed.
“I thought, why didn’t Irish Spring hire me to do a commercial?” he joked.
Related: ‘Dallas’ Star Patrick Duffy Opens Up About Parents’ Brutal Murders and How He Broke the News to His Young Sons
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