Linda Gray is 85 years old: “Dallas” icon is more than just Sue Ellen

Of course, it has grown older, also visible. Finally, Linda Gray turns 85 on September 12th. But – as for decades – she wears her trademark on her face unmistakably: the smile, still a little painful, on the one hand.

On the other hand, it’s a typical American smile. You think you can see at least 50 bright white, even teeth and ask yourself involuntarily: she is still smiling or biting it right away?

It is the smile of Sue Ellen Ewing, her alter ego for 47 years. Sue Ellen determined the actress Linda Gray’s professional life. The most successful phase. From 1978 to 1991, then again from 2012 to 2014 she was Sue Ellen. The unfortunate wife of Kotzbrocken JR Ewing in the TV cult series “Dallas”.

Every time this devilish guy struggled or otherwise finished and which had treated himself to a glass of whiskey too much because of the mental exhaustion, half the world sighed: poor Sue Ellen.

Linda Gray embodied the ranged wife, who drank frustration and despair from the liver, a picture of the misery. Actually a rapidly become a rapid role. Gray gave her so much convincing suffering that she became a life’s work, which also perceived the world. This world can be pretty sympathetic. She almost only sees Sue Ellen, hardly the people behind it: Linda Gray.

When her son Jeff Thrasher died of leukemia five years ago at the age of 56, the art figure Sue Ellen was mostly regretted, while the true mother Linda Gray invited with a broken heart and wrote: “A celebration for the life of my son Jeff. He was the friendly, funniest man … he brought the world like this and was loved by everyone.”

You can divide her alternative existence as an actress into two sections: before Dallas “, after” Dallas “. Before” Dallas “was not much, although she already had a world success: unfortunately you only saw her lower half. In 1967 she was committed to the Hollywood film” The Mature Test “with stars like Anne Bankcroft and Dustin Hoffman. Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bankcroft) seduce the young Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman).

Otherwise, the Californian modeled, appeared in commercials, had small film roles. Then in 1978 “Dallas”, an unprecedented soap opera came for money, power and intrigue around the Ewing family at the Southfork Ranch in Texas. Undisputed center: JR Ewing (Larry Hagman), who outsourced friends, enemies and all family members and converts and cheats on his wife Sue Ellen.

The series ran until 1991 and was later revived for a short time. “Dallas” was translated into 70 languages ​​and broadcast in 90 countries, from 1981 also in Germany. Linda Gray later said: “Dallas was a catalyst for me because it opened so many doors, philosophies and ideas. We all – Larry Hagman, Patrick Duffy and myself – were unemployed actors who happened to get a job, and this job was called Dallas. We had no idea that he would be a success, so we thought: ‘”

The role of the frustrated, constantly drunk Sue Ellen also had a awareness -promoting function for Linda Gray. It was “great earnings” for the series to make the problems of alcoholism into a social topic. “To this day, people confess to me that they only dared to go to the anonymous alcoholics.” In Germany she got the “Bambi”.

Linda Gray, who hardly drinks alcohol himself, knows married rams and alcoholism from his own experience. The marriage of her parents was a disaster, the mother was an alcoholic. She herself “took over at a very young age. My sister and I stood in the kitchen and I said what we should cook. Then she was only five years old.”

Even his own marriage to the photographer and graphic artist Ed Thrasher (1932-2006) was not happy. Her husband was a despot,: “In our house I felt like the maid. Every morning a yellow note was on the fridge. A to-do list for Linda: Iron my shirts, wash the car, bring the dog to the vet, stroke the veranda, feed the chickens.”

After 21 years of marriage (1962-1983) she divorced. “I moved to Malibu. My children were mad at me. After the divorce, I moved to our ranch, on which I still live today.”

The separation cost her all friends. “They hit the side of Ed, took care of him. Nobody invited me anymore. I was successful, attractive and single. Other women didn’t want me to have my fat, old husband around. And my children blamed me to tore the family apart.”

Of all people, her film husband Larry Hagmann and his wife Maj took care of Linda. “You became my harbor in the storm.” It was a relationship “like that of an older brother to his little sister. For years, Larry examined every man who crossed my life. Nobody was good enough for me. He had something to complain about on everyone. It was a laugh.”

The times of “Dallas” are long gone, the friend Larry Hagman died of larynx cancer in 2012. It was quiet around Linda. She had some smaller roles and orders as a director and producer, also appeared in the popular TV series “Hollyoaks”. She was committed to women’s rights and better health care, was even “UN ambassador of good will” from 1997 to 2007.

And she wrote a book about her experiences with dramatic life incisions such as a paralysis survived, the alcohol drama in the parents’ house and the death of her younger sister (breast cancer). Her autobiography “The Road to Happiness” became a bestseller, also because it reads like a personal guide to dignifying dignity. “I want to encourage women that life is not over at 40.”

Sometimes she still experiences relapses in the times of Sue Ellen in her everyday life: “When I drink a glass of wine in the restaurant, I often hear at the next table: ‘I thought that it is drinking again!'”