Patrick Duffy says you can go home again - especially if your address is the Southfork Ranch.
The man who is the iconic Bobby Ewing is practically giddy on a warm spring morning. Don't bother to ask how he is these days.
"How can I not be wonderful when all of this is going on with the show?" says Duffy about the new "Dallas" series which debuts on TNT on June 13.
"We're all so happy and excited. It's crazy," he says.
He says that returning to the show that jettisoned him to worldwide stardom wasn't a given.
"Larry Hagman, Linda Grey and I heard so many permutations of how to bring the show back over the years," he says. "They were awful ideas and scripts that sucked. We would read them and roll our eyes.
"When we got this script, it was wonderful. All three of us said, 'We're in.' If one of us would have said no, the other two wouldn't have done it," he says.
SECRETS FROM THE SET OF THE NEW "DALLAS"
In the new installment, his Bobby is married to a character played by Brenda Strong ("Desperate Housewives").
I have to ask the now 63-year-old Duffy if he will still have steamy sex scenes?
"The steamy love scenes are for the younger casts. Mine will be humid love scenes like a day in Hawaii where you're sticky and not sweating," he jokes.
The new "Dallas" features JR Ewing (Hagman) up to his old tricks of deception while his brother Bobby is enjoying a new marriage. Linda Grey is also back as Sue Ellen Ewing.
One wonders if other vintage cast members will show up at Southfork?
Duffy tells me, "Charlene Tilton as Lucy Ewing shows up in the first episode and so does Steve Kanaly as Ray Krebs. Ken Kercheval shows up as Cliff.
"The rule is if any of the old cast is still alive they're still on the table. The option is always there," he says.
Now a question as big as Texas: Will the love of Bobby's life - Pamela Barnes Ewing a.k.a. Victoria Principal — be making a long awaited comeback?
"Pam was a fiery crash and had a deadly disease and then she disappeared into the mist. Is she still alive on the show? I don't really know," Duffy muses.
I asked him if the now 80-year-old Hagman still has all that JR Ewing bite.
"Of course, he does. If it wasn't broke, we're not going to fix it," Duffy says of how the new series works.
"The thing is JR loves his brother, but he wants to be better than Bobby. At the same time if some outside forced messed with Bobby, JR would always have his back. I just wouldn't trust him to walk across the street with Bobby's $5 bill."
CLOSE FRIENDS OFF THE SET
"Walking on the set of the new series was like Christmas and being six years old all over again. It was so delicious and now the three of us are always on the set.
"It's such a gift," he says.
"Larry will say to me, 'I'm 80 and I'm in exactly the place where I want to be.'"
Duffy tells me that he has remained close over the years with his castmates.
"Larry, Linda and I are as close as three people can be without being married to each other," he teases.
"Come to think of it...I've never even been married to Sue Ellen (Grey) on the show. Of course, there was a time when Linda and I promoted the idea that they could have been a good couple.
"We thought it was a good idea, but no one else did," he says.
Did Bobby really lust after Sue Ellen over those long lingering breakfasts at Southfork or those early evening drinks in the living room?
"Well, he wasn't always lusting after her. You have to consider whom he was sitting next to," he says. "It's not like Pam was a piece of dried toast. Victoria is so beautiful."
AN OLDER BOBBY EWING
He says slipping into Bobby's skin again was easy.
"It was like putting on Superman's cape," he says.
"It was eerily comfortable and strangely easy. I know I'm several years older than when I left the show.
"In fact, we start out the first show by celebrating Bobby Ewing turning 60. I'm 63," he says. "So, we did shave off three years."
But is he still a sex symbol?
"Sex symbol!" he cries. "I take my Mueslix in the morning. Can I still be a sex symbol?"
