45 Years After “Who Shot J.R.?,” ‘Dallas’ Star Patrick Duffy Still Has a Lot to Say

On March 21, 1980, Dallas wrapped up its third season with a doozy of cliffhanger, when J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) was gunned down in his office by an unseen assailant. For months, viewers were left on the edge of their seats wondering: Who Shot J.R.?  Patrick Duffy, who played J.R.’s brother, Bobby Ewing, remembers thinking the twist was on brand for the direction in which the show was heading. “We were used to the goings-on in the writers’ room and in [producer] Leonard Katzman’s executive office, of dropping little bombshells all through the first two years of the show,” Duffy recalls.