(J. Anderson/The Daily Campus)
In the 1980s, one TV show symbolized Dallas more than any other. The glitzy oil-rich Ewing family entertained audiences week after week on CBS for 13 years. The series gave people around the country a view of Dallas not tied to what happened one sad day in the fall of 1963.
Dallas as portrayed on “Dallas” had glitz and glamour, big hair and big hats, high stakes business deals and high drama. The original series filmed most of the show’s 357 episodes either on site at Southfork Ranch in Parker, Texas or at the MGM Studios in Hollywood.
The updated “Dallas” is filming all around Dallas, and on Friday, they filmed on campus at Southern Methodist University.
The new series is not a remake, but a continuation.
John Patterson, location manager for “Dallas” said they were looking for a “location that had the right gravitas, importance and beauty.”
“[We] looked at a few locations around town and kept coming back to Dallas Hall. We loved the look,” Patterson said. “They don’t often do this, but they granted us the right to film here and use the name SMU.”
For the show’s on-set prop master John Navarro, it was a chance to get paid to spend time at his alma mater. He attended SMU as part of the Professional Actors Training Program in the MFA program in 1976 to 1977. Navarro said the campus “seems bigger, unlike when I went back to my elementary school, which seemed smaller, this seems bigger.” Navarro said his job was “a lot like the army, hours and hours of boredom surrounded by moments of pure panic when you have to get stuff done, but it is rewarding.”
While she was not a regular viewer of the show back in the day, executive producer Cynthia Cidre has caught up on her viewing and is now a self-described “Dallas nerd.”
The original series “Dallas” had one of the most watched episodes in TV history when on Nov. 7, 1980, a record-setting audience of 360 million tuned in to find out who shot J.R. Ewing in the previous season’s finale.
The latest incarnation of “Dallas” as a TV show will premiere this summer on cable network TNT. Original continuing cast members Linda Gray (Sue Ellen Ewing), Larry Hagman (J. R. Ewing), Patrick Duffy (Bobby Ewing), Steve Kanaly (Ray Krebbs) and Charlene Tilton (Lucy Ewing) are joined in the new series by Josh Henderson (John Ross Ewing III), Jesse Metcalfe (Christopher Ewing), Jordana Brewster (Elena Ramos), Brenda Strong (Ann Ryland Ewing), Julie Gonzalo (Rebecca Sutter) and Marlene Forte (Carmen Ramos).
