DALLAS ORAL HISTORY

Dialogue from (so far) the first six or so seasons of DALLAS, plus KNOTS LANDING, where characters reminisce about the past, to construct a roughly chronological "in their own words" account of the Ewing/Barnes' back story.

Eleanor "Miss Ellie" Ewing (née Southworth) on Southfork Ranch: We Southworths have been here a long time. It's what we're made of. We love this land.

Clayton Farlow to Bobby Ewing: Land that your great-grandfather staked out.

Miss Ellie: My daddy had a feeling for the land that only a rancher could know.
Matt Devlin: Or a rancher's daughter.

Miss Ellie: My father was an early person. He said the ranch was always at its best in the morning.

Miss Ellie: I used to love the cattle auctions. My daddy used to take me. When I was four or five and found out what the auctions were, I made a terrible fuss. I didn't want them to sell any of the livestock. Then pride took over. Once we got there and saw the other livestock and listened to the buyer, I swelled up. The steer on my daddy's ranch was always the best in the state.

Matt to Ellie: You haven't changed since you were a girl. You were always fighting other people's battles.

Ellie and Digger

Willard "Digger" Barnes on Ellie: My daddy used to work for her daddy, old man Southworth. That's how we got to know each other.

Aaron Southworth: Ellie, you know how I close I was to Willard's daddy.
Ellie: Henry saved your life.
Aaron: I wanted to give him a piece of land, that very piece right over there [on Southfork], but he got insulted when I made the offer.
Ellie: Real proud, huh?
Aaron: Too proud. Almost had to break his arm to get him to take a pair of handmade boots for Christmas. Anyway, he never let me bring up the land again until he was dying.

Ellie to Digger: My daddy gave your daddy a parcel of land and when your daddy died, my daddy said you'd get it.

Cliff Barnes, Digger's son: Ellie Ewing was someone very special to him. She was his first love.

Jock Ewing: Sweethearts?? He and Ellie were fourteen years old, fifteen tops!

Digger: She was a sweet little thing, Ellie was, with a great big laugh. She had a way about her. She would be sweet as sugar one minute, and come at you with a shotgun the next, and, oh, what a temper she had: go off like a firecracker - bang! - and just as quick, it was all over. Sure had a way about her.

Miss Ellie to Digger: Willard Barnes, always the romantic. No one ever knew how gentle you were.
Digger: Except you. I remember how you used to look when you used to pick [wildflowers] in the field, face all lit up and glowing. I remember every day we ever dated. Remember that time you was teaching me how to ride a horse? A big Palomino, name of Buckwheat. I still had oil on my boots. You must have spent hours cleaning up that animal.
Ellie: And you picked the only spot of mud in the whole corral to fall into.
Digger: I wasn't much of a horseman. Of course, I had a terrible temper. I wish things could have turned out differently. We were good for each other.
Ellie: For a while.

1930: The wildcatter cometh

Marvin "Punk" Anderson on Jock Ewing: A man I'm proud to say was one of closest friends ever since we was kids, wildcatting together over in the East Texas fields. Now, y'all might not think that he was such a good friend when I tell you that it was him that hung the name Punk on me.

Jock Ewing: I was married. Her name was Amanda Lewis. She was a pretty little thing, fragile. You know, the kind you had to protect. I was wildcatting. Tough times. Men shooting, killing each other. There were accidents. It was just something that she couldn't cope with, that's all. All that strain. Everything got to her, everything depressed her. Two years after we married, she had a nervous breakdown. She lost all touch with reality. They had to confine her to a state mental hospital. Dr Filey told me to divorce her, that she'd never be a well woman. It's something I never told anybody.

Abel Greeley, resident of Big Springs: Wildcatting was a big thing at the time. Everybody was pecking around for their own pool of oil. Jonas [Culver] had a parcel of land that [his nephew] Sam just naturally wanted.

Donna Culver Krebbs, Sam Culver's biographer: Sam's partner was Jock.

Extracts from Sam Culver's diary:
"February 3rd, 1930. Upped the offer to Jonas, but the old cootus still won't budge. Jock thinks the land is worth a fortune in oil."
February 25th, 1930. Today I got a court order to have Jonas committed to Signal Mountain Sanitarium. Had myself appointed custodian of Jonas's estate."

Abel on Jonas: [He was] stubborn as a mule, but not crazy. A man like that, used to the outdoors, must have felt like a caged animal in that hospital.

Extracts from Sam Culver's diary:
"March 27th, 1930. Today, as custodian of Jonas's estate, I sold to Ewing/Culver all but forty acres of Jonas's land. The money is in an account in his name and he'll get a 25% royalty from oil producing wells. Next week, I'll release him from the sanitarium. Neither Jock nor I wanted to do things this way, but the old codger left us no option. Anyway, now he'll be a rich man despite himself."
"April 12th, 1930. Lord oh lord, what have we done? Jonas killed himself today."

Abel on Jonas: Putting him away was the same as shooting him through the heart.

Dave Culver, Sam's son: On top of everything else, Jonas made my father his sole heir. He got everything.

Donna: Jonas's property was the field that started the entire Culver/Ewing fortunes.

Digger and Jock

John Ross "JR" Ewing II: Jock and Digger were partners. They met riding the rails during the Depression when they were still practically kids. They worked the oil fields, went wildcatting together, hit it big. They broke up over a - I don't know what. Some say it was a deal of some kind. Some even say it was over my mama [Miss Ellie].

Ellie: Jock, Digger was your friend and your partner.

Cliff on Digger: My daddy is the one that found the oil the Ewings have been sucking out of the ground for all these years. The Ewing fortune was founded on Digger's skill. Without him, they wouldn't have a penny. If it weren't for Digger Barnes, nobody would ever have even heard of Jock Ewing.

Digger: Now, nineteen and thirty was my year. My partner and I walked out right here in Texas, and I just followed my nose, and I said "Here!"

Jock on Digger: I swear that man could smell oil fifty thousand feet below the ground.

Cliff on Digger: He was the greatest wildcatter in the whole state of Texas.

Digger: They used to point me in any direction, any direction. I'd start walking and where I stopped, that's where the oil was. I didn't even use a doodle stick, I could smell it coming right up out of the ground.

Jock: We sure had some great times together.

Digger: Jock Ewing had the head, I had the nose. He was the smarter, I've never said otherwise. But without my nose, he wouldn't have had nothing. I found the oil. He claimed it. I drilled it. He sold what bubbled up. we was partners. One needed the other. I trusted him.

Alf Brindle, driller: Digger did the sniffing out and Jason [Jock's brother] kind of ran the crews. Jock was heading the operation. Everyone just kind of took it for granted that each of them had a piece of the pie.

Sam Culver: They'd just elected me Justice of the Peace the week before and here they come, pulling Digger Barnes and Jock up in front of me. It seems they just hit one. Digger come into town to drink the bar dry, buying for everyone. In come old Jock, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him out. Well, that didn't set too good with the boys he was buying the drinks for, so there ensued one of the finest brawls ever to take place west of the Mississippi. Gave them both a week in the pokey.

The split

Rebecca Wentworth: Digger never had a chance. Jock was too shrewd, too strong and too fast.

Miss Ellie: Once a well came in, Digger lost all interest. He'd be drunk for weeks, leaving [Jock] with all the responsibility.

Cliff to Jock's son, JR: Ewing 6 is the field that split up your daddy and mine. You see, my daddy found it, and your daddy swindled him out of it.

Alf Brindle: The night the well came in, we had one hell of a celebration - I mean, the loud mouth was really flowing. Me and Jason and Digger, we all got drunk as skunks and tore up the town. The sheriff threw us in the pokey for three days. Jock was smarter than the rest of us. He had a few drinks and sacked out early.
Ray Krebbs: So the very next day, Jock went down to register the claim?
Brindle: Yeah, while we was in jail. Listen, in them days you didn't wanna wait around too long before registering a strike, you know. You had to register in person back then.

Jock: I put that claim in my name to keep [Digger] from gambling his half away.

Digger on Jock: And he went to register the claim and I stayed there and I drilled, and when I thought we had enough, ten times more than we could ever spend, I said "That's a-plenty".

Jock: I come back to the claim. He's drunk. He looks at the paper, sees my name, jumps me, tries to tear my eyes out.

Digger: And he looked at me and laughed in my face and said that I owned nothing, nothing at all. I even owed him some money.

Jock: I was gonna give him half the money.

Digger: I tried to kill Jock Ewing once or twice, but I bungled it.

Jock on Digger: Been a loser every day of his life. Couldn't even kill me the time he tried.

Digger: See, I can drill but I can't kill!

Maggie Monahan, Digger's sister: According to Digger, everything bad is Ewing-made. Digger's blamed Jock for all the misfortune he ever had. Some of the blame is Jock's, but not all.

Miss Ellie: The only one that hurt Digger was Digger himself. Digger would have ended up the way he is even if there had never been a Jock Ewing.

Extract from a signed legal document, dated February 26th 1939: "It is hereby agreed that all revenues and profits in the oil field now known as Ewing 23 will be shared equally by John Ewing and Willard Barnes and their heirs in perpetuity."

Jock: Digger and I signed a lot of papers.

Cliff: They probably signed it when Digger was drunk and then forgot all about it.

Bobby on Ewing 23: An old Ewing Oil field down in East Texas [that] was shut down about [1950]. There was still a lot of oil down there. With prices so low back in those days, it wasn't worth bringing it up.

The Depression

Miss Ellie: The thirties were like a plague around here. There was drought, depression.

Miss Ellie on Southfork: I remember when we used to ride out here and we'd see cattle all the way down to the river and up on he hillside on the Haskins place.
Aaron Southworth: That was before the drought.

Garrison Southworth, Ellie's brother: I loved Daddy. I just couldn't stand that look in his eyes when he'd come back from selling things off with hardly any money at all. I was his only son and I couldn't help him. And he'd go right on, as if Southfork was the most prosperous ranch on earth. But his voice had an edge of fear. He never knew I heard that.

Wallace Windham, entrepreneur: At that time our country was in great trouble. So many people out of work, so few jobs. A man would even sell you the shirt off his back for his next meal. The price of petroleum was tumbling. People couldn't afford to drive cars. Industry around the country was coming to a standstill. If you had money, and I had it, you could buy almost anything at a fraction of its value.

Harve Smithfield to Windham: Did you ever dabble in the oil business?
Windham: Once, briefly, in 1933. Jason Ewing wanted out of the oil business before his share of Ewing Oil became worthless.
Harve: So he offered to sell his share of Ewing Oil to you. What about Digger Barnes?
Windham: He offered to sell his shares too, though he never said too much. We met three times. I think he was drunk every time. Jason Ewing did all the talking for both of them. After that first visit, I checked on Ewing Oil and I found out that they could and wanted to sell me their shares without telling Jock Ewing. I found out a lot about Jock Ewing too. He was the brains of the outfit. The company meant everything to him.
Harve: Did you finally decide to buy both their shares of Ewing Oil?
Windham: I did. See, Jason was greedy and stupid. So I bought their two thirds of Ewing Oil for a very low price. I never bought anything that I couldn't turn over for a quick profit. I knew I had a buyer. So I just sat back and I waited. I didn't have to wait too long. When [Jock] found out about the deal, he was furious and ashamed. He didn't want anyone to know what his brother and best friend had done to him. He asked me to spare him the embarrassment of changing the name of Ewing Oil. Since I was interested in owning it no longer than it took Jock to buy it back from, I thought, well, that's the least I could do. So we agreed to conduct our business in secret. He borrowed up to his eyeballs, mortgaged everything he owned, and then week by week, month by month for over a year, Jock made payments to me. I don't know how he scrimped and saved so much.

Harve: Jock Ewing bought back Jason Ewing's and Willard Barnes' share of Ewing Oil from Wallace Windham, and became the sole legal owner of Ewing Oil on November 28, 1932.

Wallace Windham to Jock' sons: Your daddy really earned my respect for what he did. The man mortgaged nearly everything he owned at that time.

Jock to son JR on his first wife: When I was able, I had her moved to a private hospital in Colorado. Paid for her expenses ever since. Used to see her real often, and then when I started seeing your mama, I stopped. I always dreaded seeing her.

Miss Ellie to Jock: Why did you stop visiting her? Was it because of me?
Jock: It was becoming harder and harder finding excuses. I was afraid that if I told you about Amanda, I'd lose you. Always wanted to tell [you]. I must have been on the verge of it a hundred times, but the time was never right. I just didn't have the guts to tell you, that's all. I was in competition with Digger Barnes for you. I wasn't so sure of myself in those days.

Digger on Jock: He not only stole my fortune, he stole my sweetheart.

Miss Ellie: He didn't steal me, Digger.

Rebecca Wentworth: Digger Barnes was in love with Ellie. So was Jock Ewing. Two men in love with the same woman, happens all the time - but when one of the men is a Ewing, he isn't content to win the woman fair and square, he has to destroy his rival at the same time.

Jock on Garrison Southworth: I was the outsider, big successful oil man. He and his buddy Digger Barnes, they resented that.

Miss Ellie to Jock on Garrison: I never understood why you never liked him.

JR on Garrison: He used to hang around with Digger Barnes, sang the same efrain over and over again - the Ewings stole everything from him.

Jock: Both ran away. Garrison to sea, Digger to the bottle.

Garrison to Ellie: I just got fed up with it, all the dust and the dying cattle. And all those fights with Daddy. So I just left you with the responsibility.

Garrison on Digger: I tried to talk him into going to sea with me.
Pam Ewing, Digger's daughter: I think Digger would have gone if he wasn't so hooked on oil.

Jock: When Garrison ran away, he was bankrupt. The sheriff was knocking at the door.

Miss Ellie, referring to herself and Jock: I knew a woman once. Her man couldn't decide whether or not to do right by her. So she took a horsewhip to him, helped make up his mind fast. My family was gonna lose this ranch. I did what I had to do.

Garrison to Jock: I was in New York waiting for a ship when I read about you and Ellie getting married.

Miss Ellie, on her wedding dress: My daddy had a woman come all the way from Paris with the material for it, and money was hard for him to come by in those days. But he was determined to show all those oil men that a Southworth wouldn't be put to shame. [Jock] was something, all decked out in formal clothes. He would have felt better in boots and jeans. He kept tugging at his collar, trying to breathe. He was the handsomest man I'd ever seen.

Garrison: When I read she'd married that hard-nosed wildcatter, I didn't wanna believe it. Guess that must have been the final straw for my old friend Digger Barnes.
Jock: He survived it.

Miss Ellie: When I was first married, my daddy didn't like Jock any better than Digger did.

Digger to Ellie: I never held you responsible, you know that. You did what you had to do and I respected you for it.
Miss Ellie: So did Jock.

Maggie Monahan: Digger took off right after Ellie married Jock and, when he finally came back, he had Becky with him.

Jock: I built the first house Miss Ellie and I ever lived in, after the old ranch house burnt down.

Miss Ellie: How smart I was, marrying a man with dirty fingernails.

Jock to Miss Ellie: You remember when we first got married? We used to bring a bottle of wine up to the room, spend most of the night talking and carrying on.

Miss Ellie: When Jock and I were first married, he used to threaten to send me out to cooking school.

Jock: Miss Ellie, when I married you I told you that I account to no woman for my time.

Miss Ellie: My father didn't give us five years together. Sometimes I think he was right, we were both so headstrong. Jock and I made a good marriage.

Oil on the ranch

Gary, Jock and Ellie's middle son: Daddy loved the land for what he could get out of it. Mama loved the land just because it was.

Jock to son Bobby on Section 40 of Southfork: That's where I first discovered oil, right after I married your mama. Old Man Southworth damn near skinned me alive after he found out what I'd done. Barely tolerated me the way it was. Hated all oil men. He said they ruined the ranges and stank up the air, and he figured the only way to live off the land decently was to raise cattle. So to keep the peace, I capped this thing off.

Miss Ellie: My daddy swore there would never be any drilling on this land.

Jock on Aaron "Old Man" Southworth: He put it in his will - nobody could ever drill on Southfork.

Miss Ellie: My daddy's will gave the mineral rights to me.

Bobby on Aaron: He wanted that land preserved for ranching.

Harve Smithfield: I was your daddy's attorney before you were born, JR.

Legacies

John Ross "JR" Ewing, Jock and Ellie's eldest don: It was my grandfather, Aaron Southworth's favourite gun - an 1892 six-shot Colt, a double action 38 service revolver. The president of the company [had] presented it to [him]. My grandfather was dying. He wanted my daddy to have it.
Assistant DA Sloane: You were there on that occasion?
JR: Yes. He wanted my father to know he had finally been accepted into the family.

Miss Ellie: It was my daddy's wish that Garrison have the ranch. Jock, I never told you how hurt I was when I found out my daddy had made Garrison sole heir. But that's the way things were done in those days - father to son. Daughters always came second.

Miss Ellie to Garrison: Your ship went down. They said you'd drowned. Daddy died, and then you. Both so close together.
Garrison: I thought it was best for everyone. I knew you were married to Jock by then and he had the money to save the ranch. I couldn't come back because I couldn't face you.

Miss Ellie on Garrison: When he was lost at sea, [Jock] and I had to go to court and have him declared dead.
Jock: That was just a formality. The ranch was tied up in a legal knot.

JR: The ranch went to Mama.

Miss Ellie on Garrison: Even when I thought he was dead, that day in court when we made it official, I felt I was stealing something from him.

Miss Ellie: [In 1939], Ewing Oil paid off the mortgage on Southfork.

Jock: It was my life, my sweat and my money that saved this ranch.

World War II

Jock: It was wartime. Back in those days, everybody went a little haywire.

Miss Ellie: We were so young then. Somehow, you think you just can't die.

Jock: I was in the Army Corps. I served in London and I had an affair with an army nurse named Margaret Hunter. She knew about Ellie. I knew about her fiancee, Amos Krebbs, but it was war time and our feelings were, well, let's just say we were two lonely people.

Ray Krebbs, Margaret's son: She used to talk about those nursing days a lot. Seemed like the only time in her life she ever felt useful.

Amos Krebbs, Margaret's fiancee: You were in love with [Margaret], weren't you?
Jock: It was special.
Amos: I know she was in love with you. She never let me forget it.

Jock: I was sent to France and she was shipped back home. We said good-bye. We knew it was over. We thought that was the best thing to do. We never kept in touch after that. As soon as I got home, I confessed this to Miss Ellie. She forgave me for that, but what I didn't know was I had fathered a child by Margaret.

1947

JR: Mama, you don't know the half of what Daddy did when he was running Ewing Oil. Now he was a fair man, but he was tough and ruthless when he had to be. He brought strong leadership to the company and strong leadership to the family.

Tom Owens to Jock: You came to my farm personally. You tried to get me to sell. When I wouldn't, you spread some money around. Suddenly nobody would buy my crops. You crushed me like a bug, took everything. My boy and I had to start all over again from nothing.

Jock: I ran roughshod over a lot of people.

The Ewing sons

Miss Ellie: These boys of mine. You should have seen them when they were growing up.

JR: I've been special my whole life. There isn't anything I wanted I didn't get.

Miss Ellie: JR was so quiet, so shy. When I took him shopping, he held on to my skirts so tight. I think Jock scared him at first, and then when Gary came along, Jock just took over raising JR. "Make him a man's man," he said.

Jock: I used to spend a lot of time with JR, fishing, hunting, when he was a kid, and one thing I drilled into him was how to signal for help if he was ever out alone, lost or hurt - three of anything: shots, fires, mirror
flashes.

JR: Daddy took me out [hunting], oh, just when I first started walking. He could find his way through the woods and swamps, across deserts.

Clayton Farlow: I figure JR never helped with the round up [on Southfork]?
Sue Ellen Ewing, JR's wife: No, he was always busy trying to prove to his daddy that he could run Ewing Oil.

JR to Jock: Daddy, I always tried to please you. Always tried to do what you wanted me to do. Always tried to be the man you wanted me to become.

JR: Ever since I was a little boy, Ewing Oil has meant so much to me.

Miss Ellie to JR: You were a small child when I stopped interfering in your life. I gave you up too soon. I should have held onto you a little longer.

Miss Ellie: I guess that's why I fussed over Gary so much, because Jock had JR.

Bobby: Mama, she always, always liked Gary the best.

Garrison on Gary: You named him after me.
Miss Ellie: I never knew how alike the two of you were. Both wanderers, both drifters.

Miss Ellie: Gary was a lot like my daddy, always in trouble with Jock.

Bobby on Gary: "A Southworth among Ewings," she used to call him.

Miss Ellie: Gary was always the cowboy among my sons. He really loved this ranch.

Gary: All my life, the only time I ever felt happy was working the ranch. I don't know, I can't explain it. It's something about the rhythm of it, the seasons, I don't know, but it's in me. It's part of me.

Bobby: I was raised by a strong mother and a very tough father.

Miss Ellie: Bobby was given everything that JR had to fight for, and Gary didn't care about. We all spoiled him

Digger and Rebecca

Cliff on Digger: He loved Mama.
Pam: Did he? He never says that. When he speaks of her at all it's with a kind of reverence, but not the kind of passion he seems to feel for Miss Ellie.

Maggie Monahan on Rebecca: She wasn't from around here. Never did get it straight exactly where she was from. Oklahoma, maybe, or Tennessee. [Digger] married her on the rebound, we figured. But I think he grew to love her. He seemed to.

Cliff: I had an older brother, Tyler. He died when he was six months old.

Digger to Cliff: My whole life, I never got one thing I wanted, except you.

JR on Cliff: He's hated this family since the day he was born.

Cliff: And there was a girl between Pam and myself, she died before she was a year old. And we never found out why.

Digger: We were living in Braddock, maybe a mile from Southfork.

Miss Ellie to Pam: I only met your mother a few times. None of us knew Rebecca very well. You know what Digger was like, drunk so much of the time and disappearing for months.

Enter Hutch McKinney

Deputy Sheriff Newly on Hutch McKinney: He was foreman on the Southfork for a couple of years. He had a bad temper. He was a touchy guy. He used to get in fights all the time.

Jock on his Colt 38: I noticed it missing one day.

Assistant DA Sloane to JR: It must have been a very special gun to your daddy. He probably kept it well oiled and clean all the time.
JR: He did.
Sloane: Any mention of it when it went missing?
JR: No. Well, I don't remember. I was just a little kid at the time.
Sloane: Did you see that gun again after it disappeared?
JR: No.

Jock on the gun: I thought I lost it. That's the reason I never said anything. I guess McKinney stole it.

Newly on Hutch McKinney and Jock: There was bad blood between them. They hated each other's guts.

Verno Ferris, Braddock local: It was 1952. Eisenhower had just beat the pants off of that Stephenson guy. It was a couple of weeks after the election. Some of us were still celebrating.

Jock: I found out that Hutch had been cutting steers, selling them and getting kick back on the feed money. Maybe he'd padded some other bills too, I didn't have time to check. He'd been up at Two-Stick Pasture all day and I just couldn't talk to him. But I knew that he and some of the boys liked to stop by The Braddock Saloon and have a few belts after they'd finished work. It was the only saloon in town at the time. But by then I was so damn mad, I couldn't wait for him to get back to the bunk house so I drove into town to meet him. Well, I got there a little early and had four or five belts before Hutch arrived. He was surprised to see me.

Verno Ferris: Right there in the bar, Jock fired [McKinney]. He ordered him to leave the ranch by morning, or he was going to kill him.

Jock: Then all hell broke loose.

Verno Ferris: Hutch McKinney and Jock Ewing almost tore the place apart.

Jock on McKinney: He picked himself up and left.

Virgil Tuttle, ranch worker on Southfork: Old Hutch, he started coming in the bunk house. He went over to his bed and he spread out, and in no time at all, he's snoring. When old Hutch gets to snoring, I could tell you stories. About midnight, the door of the bunk house flew open and Jock Ewing come in.

Jock on Hutch: He was asleep in the bunk house with an empty jug of gin beside him.

Tuttle on Jock: He went over and pulled old Hutch right out of the bed, and he warned him what would happen if he found him on Southfork - he'd kill him.

Jock on Hutch: I jerked him outside and we went at it again.

Tuttle: I figured I best stay put.

Jock: I guess I just lost all control, I was so damn mad.

Tuttle on Jock: He came in to wash up. He had blood splattered all over him.
Sloane: Did you ever see Hutch McKinney again after that night?
Tuttle: Never did.

Digger: I was drinking. It was another of those three day benders. I came home to your mama, Pam, Cliff. Like I always did. Only this time, it wasn't the same.

Digger in 1952: Hey, what are you doing here, McKinney?
Rebecca: Digger, Jock fired Hutch. He's leaving Dallas. I'm going with him. I'm in love with him.
Digger: You're pregnant. What about my baby?
Rebecca: Digger, Hutch is the daddy.
Digger, striking Rebecca: You whore!
(Digger and Hutch fight.)
Hutch, pulling Jock's gun on Digger: Say your prayers, Digger.
(Rebecca knocks the gun from Hutch's hand. Digger picks it up.)
Hutch: Don't shoot!
(Digger shoots Hutch.)

Digger: I dragged him outside, put him in my car. I buried the body in the first open space I saw. I realised later it was a section of Southfork.

Maggie on Digger: He was upset about something. That's all I knew.

Digger: I took Becky and Cliff and we moved to Corpus Christi.

Corpus Christi woman on Rebecca: She was a nice woman and beautiful. She was pregnant. Big with it, she was.

Pam to Digger: What about the baby?
Bobby: The baby McKinney fathered?
Digger: I always loved you, Pam. Just like you were my own.

Rebecca to Pam: You were a happy baby. You giggled and laughed. You were never a howler.
Pam: When did I start walking?
Rebecca: You were young, just ten months. I remember we were all in the living room and you just stood up and walked clear across the room to Digger, just like that.

Corpus Christi woman: One Christmas, I went to visit my brother in Galveston. I stayed a few weeks, came back and [Rebecca] was gone. The whole family, gone. Nobody knew [where]. I asked, but nobody knew.

Maggie on Digger: I didn't see him again till he turned up on my doorstep with you two [Cliff and Pam] saying Becky was dead. He left you, these trunks, and off he went again.

Rebecca's story

Pam on Rebecca: Someone saw her in a small town [Kingsville], just thirty miles south of Corpus Christi. It was three months after Digger said she died.

Rebecca to Pam: I was seventeen. I could barely read or write. I wasn't ready to be a wife or a mother. And Digger, Digger was destroying me. I didn't want to leave you, but I had to save myself and somehow I found the strength to do it.

John Mackey, private detective, on Rebecca: She worked as a waitress for a while at Jerry's Coffee Shop. She met a travelling salesman. They left Kingsville together.

Rebecca Barnes Wentworth: I closed a door in my mind. I sealed off a part of my life - the awful, awful pain of having to abandon my own flesh and blood.

John Mackey: She must have changed her name every twenty minutes back then, the last being Rebecca Burke.

Clayton Farlow on Rebecca: She scratched her way over the tough side of the tracks. Taught herself how to type so she could work at something else besides waitressing. Practically taught herself how to read.

John Mackey to Pam: Your mother was a very clever woman. She knew she wouldn't get what she wanted out of life by waiting tables so when she got to Houston, she put herself through a good secretarial school where she learned stenography, typing, that sort of thing, and she was good at it. When she graduated, she landed herself a job with the brokerage firm of Wentworth and Pitts. She was good, efficient, and her looks didn't hurt either. After a while, she found her way into the office of the president himself, Mr Wentworth, and became his executive secretary. One thing led to another and, some time after that, he asked her to marry him.

Rebecca: I never divorced Digger. I was afraid that if I tried, he'd find me and drag me back to that awful life.

John Mackey: Rebecca Barnes Burke became Mrs Rebecca Wentworth. [They had] a daughter, Katherine.

Rebecca: I saw a chance for happiness and I took it. I led a comfortable life, happily married to a man I adore.

Life without Rebecca

Pam to Rebecca: When Digger told us that you died, I could never really accept that. I used to think about you every day, my mother who died and went to Heaven, and I used to wonder what you were like, what you smelled like. Sometimes I even thought I could remember.

Cliff to Rebecca: You ran out on me. I was barely five years old and you pretended to be dead. You left me with a baby sister and a drunken father.

Pam: I didn't have much of a home when I was little.

Cliff to Pam: You babbled all the time. Aunt Maggie couldn't shut you up.

Pam to Maggie: You raised me and Cliff and [Maggie's son] Jimmy, and cared for Digger, all in this one little house. I think it's remarkable.
Maggie: I enjoyed it, most of it.

Pam: After everything Digger had told me about the Ewings, I thought they were a family of monsters. I [was] always so sure that the Ewings were the bad guys. They're the ones who'd do anything to anyone.

Cliff to Pam: You used to be worse than I was, breaking up windows in the Ewing building down town. You used to plot revenge.

Pam to Cliff: When we were growing up, I thought you were the most wonderful thing that ever happened. We really were two poor kids from the wrong side of the tracks.

Growing up on Southfork

Miss Ellie on Bobby's tree house: Jock built it for him. Whenever he wanted time off from his chores, he used to be here. He'd swim in that pond. It's not very deep. He always called it his very own lake. Of all the places in Southfork where he used to play, this was his favourite. Gary used to come out here. The two of them would spend hours and hours doing ... I don't know what. JR always seemed to care more about the oil business. He was always trying to get to go out to work with Jock. Or he'd be out in the oil fields with him. When the other boys were playing, JR was learning from Jock. But I think he would have traded everything if he'd been the one that Jock built this tree house for.

Bobby: One birthday, I came home and there was a merry-go-round in the front yard. Not one of those dinky little things you find in front of a supermarket, but an honest to God merry-go-round, with music and mirrors and hand carved horses. He [Jock] would give me anything if I asked for it.

Jock: I spoiled Bobby rotten. He turned out the best of lot.

Bobby on Jock: You know what gave me the most pleasure? Just spending the day with him - we'd go to the office or out in the oil field - just to be with him.
Pam: You two always had a special relationship.

Miss Ellie: Bobby was always Jock's favourite. If ever there was a fair haired son, Bobby was it for Jock. JR always knew that Jock loved Bobby the best and it hurt him. He could never come to grips with the fact that he wasn't Jock's favourite.

JR on playing touch football with his brothers: Old Bobby was the power house. If he couldn't outrun you, he'd try and bite you on the knee.
Bobby to JR: You had the best hidden ball trick in Dallas.
JR: That's what made me so successful.
Gary: Yeah, we did have some great games.

Ray's story

Amos Krebbs on his fiancee, Margaret Hunter: There I was - good old 4F Amos Krebbs. I had to wait till the whole war was over before she'd come home to Kansas, and then I had to put up with the fact that she'd fallen for some Texas colonel.

Lil Trotter, Margaret's sister: I often thought that she married Amos because she was missing Jock so much.

Amos: When I married her, Margaret was already pregnant.

Lil: She had a hard time with Amos Krebbs, harder than she deserved. I never thought that Amos Krebbs was the right kind of husband for [her]. I told her that. I told him that, too.

Amos: I was kind of angry at one point there. That's how come I happened to steal [her diary].

An extract from Margaret Krebbs' diary, dated October 19th 1946: "Raymond's first birthday. I feel so depressed today. Jock, if you only knew how much your son and I miss you. I long to talk to you, to see you, but I won't come between you and your family. I cannot."

Lil: She never said a word [about Ray's true paternity].

Amos to Jock: She never really did get over you.

Lil on Amos: He certainly wasn't the right kind of father for Raymond.

Amos on Ray: I raised him for three years.

Ray to Amos: You ran off on me and Ma. You never come back once, never wrote no letters, sent no money, nothing.
Amos: I didn't have it to send. I tell you, things just weren't good for me.
Ray: Basically, you just never gave a damn.

Ray: I never had a home much or anything. I was just this skinny, useless kid, tired of drifting, running from the law, juvenile authorities. Mama died. [I] showed up at Southfork one day. No place else to go, just the clothes on my back and a note from my mama to Jock Ewing asking him to help me out. I've always loved that ranch, been sort of a home for me.

Jock to Ray: You were the skinniest kid of fifteen that I ever saw in my life.

Ray: Old Jock gave me a job right on the spot. He didn't have to take me in, but he did.

Jock to Ray: No doubt about my hiring you. I knew you'd stick around and work your tail off. I was glad to have you.

JR on Ray: He wouldn't walk into this house without first asking permission.

Ray: For most of my life, I've been kind of a loner. Never been able to talk to anybody, except for Jock. With his help, I pulled myself up and I made something out of my life. Jock Ewing has been more of a father to me than you [Amos] have ever been.

Ray on Jock: How I used to look up to him when I was a kid, how I idolised him. I'd goof something up, though, and he'd chew me up one side and down the other. And I thought, "How could somebody I idolise act like that?" Now I know he was concerned about me, teaching me. He knew when to be firm, and when to be affectionate. He was all those things, but mostly I guess I thought he was almost perfect.

JR: Mama, you don't know the half of what Daddy did when he was running Ewing Oil. Now he was a fair man, but he was tough and ruthless when he had to be. He brought strong leadership to the company and strong leadership to the family.

Ray: I remember running into this guy in a bar, and he called Jock a land grabbing crook. I belted that guy right on the spot. The thing is, though, he may have had his reasons. I didn't think so then. I thought of Jock as almost like a god, but he wasn't. He was a man, just like anybody else. He had friends, he had lots of friends, but he had enemies too. He was human, ambitious. He knew that the oil game was rough, hardball all the way, but he wanted what was best for his wife and for his sons. He did what he thought was right.

JR: My daddy made Ewing Oil the Number One independent oil company in Dallas.

Huntin', Fishin', Cowboyin'

JR: I wonder how many hours Daddy had us out there, practising [our rodeo skills]?
Bobby: If I remember right, you didn't take to it. It was mostly Gary and me. Ever since I can remember, all you ever thought about was running Ewing Oil. By the time I was three years old, I knew the Red Files meant "current" and "important".

Gary: I never could figure out the oil business.

Miss Ellie to Jock: Remember that hunting preserve in Cato Lake, on the Louisianna side? You used to hunt there a lot when the boys were small.
Jock: A place called Land Down. Beautiful country. You could bag a dozen birds, just like that.

JR on Jock: I remember when he used to take all four of us out hunting.
Ray : All those ghost stories he used to tell us round the camp fire. I can remember Gary sitting there, frozen in terror.
Bobby to Ray: Gary? I remember you, sitting on your hands to keep them from shaking.
JR to Bobby: Now hold on, old Ray was the strong one. I remember waking up in the morning with you in my sleeping bag.
Bobby: That was my first hunting trip, and I was only seven years old. You'd been there before, you'd heard all those stories. I remember how mad I was because Daddy wouldn't let me carry a gun.

Bobby to JR: You taught me how to use these guns when we were boys. I think we were the closest then. What I liked best was when we'd go salmon fishing in Alaska.

JR: Gary wasn't into things like that. I remember the first time he had to bait his own hook he almost fainted! He was different from the rest of us. For one thing, he used to like to write poetry. Now can you imagine a real man who would rather write poetry than go hunting? Not me!

Gary to Bobby: You were the only one that took me seriously, you and Mama. Yeah, I'd tell you about growing things and what to look for in fine cattle.
Bobby: And about your drawings, your wanting to paint. You never made me feel like a little brother.

Bobby to Miss Ellie: Ever since I was a little boy, I could only speak to two people - you and Gary.

Bobby to Gary: When we were kids, you and I found a mare running wild. Daddy promised she'd be mine if I could break her. He never knew you did it for me. You almost broke your back in the process.

JR grows up

Cliff: Wally Hampton and JR not only went to the same university, but they were also in the same fraternity.

JR: When I was in the service, I spent a lot of time in Japan. I never killed anybody, not even during the war.

Jenna Wade

Miss Ellie: She and her daddy were friends of ours.

Jenna Wade: We used to live on a ranch not more than three miles down the road [from Southfork].

Jock on Bobby: He and Jenna grew up together.

Jenna: When Bobby and I were kids, he used to ride his horse over to see me, and a couple of years later, it was a motorcycle, and then after that a convertible, whenever he could sneak away from his chores. He never liked to work much then.

Punk Anderson on Bobby and Jenna: These two were destined to be together ever since they was kids. I remember me, Jock and Lucas Wade talking about it when we used to hunting together. Y'all [Bobby and Jenna] weren't even up to our belt buckles. As soon as our backs was turned, they were always getting into some kind of devilment.

Bobby to Jenna: You always were unpredictable. If I took my eyes off you for a second, you'd be out of sight.

Ray: Guts is one thing Jenna Wade never lacked.

Miss Ellie: Jenna Wade was never stoical in her life.

Jenna on Lucas Wade and Jock: Their faces when they saw us up on their prize two year olds!
Bobby: What about my face when I saw Daddy standing there when I got down? I didn't think we'd get caught.
Jenna: Who do you think told on us anyway?
Bobby: I still think it was the stable boy. He could have seen us, told your daddy. Your daddy told my daddy.
Jenna: Who won that race? You or me?
Bobby: I don't remember.

Teenage daydreams

Gary: Ever since I was fifteen, I wanted to make a difference, not a big difference, not an earth-shattering difference, just a difference. So that when I died, I could say, "I made a difference. I made something better." But I seemed to have the opposite of the Midas Touch.

Gary: I was fourteen the first time I got drunk. One Saturday night, I sat down and I had three sixteen ounce cans of beer and got drunk as a skunk, sick as a dog. Threw up all over the place. Swore to God I'd never do it again. Next Saturday night - boom - right back out there. And the next. Everybody was doing it. I never drank to get high, I always drank to get drunk. I was out of control from the beginning, but out of fear - or hope - I couldn't admit it to myself. One of the symptoms of my [alcoholism] is to deny that I even have a problem, so I just kept on. I wouldn't listen to anyone. No one could tell me anything. I knew better than anyone else. I was the kind of drunk that had to hit bottom. I had to hurt everybody I loved. I had to hurt everyone who loved me.

Gary: I used to watch those cowboys on those broncs and, man, I wanted to do that. We had this horse on the ranch that was really mean so I'd practice on him. I'd get up on him and he'd throw me, and I'd get back up on him again, but I was determined to get good enough to enter the rodeo. So when I was fifteen, I figured I was ready. My daddy figured otherwise. So all my friends and I, we snuck into the rodeo at night, and I found me the meanest horse they had. And I got on him just to prove to my friends that I could do it. I stayed on for almost eight seconds. The only problem is I had to get drunk in order to do it so when he threw me, I broke my back. Afterwards, my daddy came to see me and it was like, I don't know, like he was proud of me for having the guts to do it.

JR: When Gary was sixteen, he somehow got into his head that he wanted a motorcycle. Now our family spoiled us boys rotten, but on this issue my daddy put his foot down. He said, "You want a motorcycle, you're going to have to earn it." And my God, he did - before dawn, up every day mucking out the stables, pitching hay, working on the rigs in the blazing sun. He just never missed one single day. Come September, my daddy took him down to the show room, gave him a slap on the back and a blank cheque. And of course, Gary had read all the brochures and motorcycle magazines. He knew exactly what he wanted. He signed the cheque, revved that old motorcycle up... and drove straight through that pate glass window.

Gary: When I was in high school, we used to hang out at a place called Dwight's that had a pinball machine I could never beat. Drove me crazy. I must have played two hundred games on that thing. Then one night I was studying for this big final exam. I took a break, dropped by Dwight's for a hamburger. Afterwards I played the machine and I won. Then I won again. I tell you, there must have been something wrong with it because I played sixteen games on that thing and, test or no test, I had to play them out. And when they closed up the place, I had eight games left. I flunked the exam and never beat that machine again.

Bobby: That's why Daddy turned away from Gary - the Ewings must succeed, and Gary didn't care about that. But JR and I do.

JR on Gary: He was always weak.
Sue Ellen: Is that why you drove him away?
JR: I did not drive him away. I tried everything I could to keep him around here. I had plans for him. He was going to college.

Val's story

Valene: All my life, I'd wanted to [see the ocean]. Even when I was little, I knew that the ocean would probably be the biggest and the most beautiful and most powerful thing I'd ever see. I thought just by being close to it, it would just make me better; make me think clearer and feel deeper and just know more.

Lilimae Clements, Val's mother: You slept through the night almost from the day you were born.

Gary to Valene: Lilimae married your daddy when she was fourteen. He was an old man already. Probably treated her like the little girl she was until you came along.

Lilimae on Val: I was just a baby when she was born. Val's daddy, Jeremiah, he was an awful lot older than me. He and my daddy was friends. Jeremiah was a good man, but he was put off by my spirit. I was a fiery one, I was. When Valene was born, she kind of took him by surprise. He never knew he could love anybody so much. He never had much for me anyway, but after Val, well, it was just them … and me. But that didn't mean I didn't love [Val] because I did. I just felt squeezed out.

Lilimae: When Valene was a baby, she could listen to my singing all day. Had no choice, come to think of it. I was always singing. My music always gave me pleasure and I needed pleasure. I needed to feel important, I needed life, and if I'd had my own life, I could have given more to [Val] and to Jeremiah.

Valene: Mama and me, we were never close. She left my daddy and me for weeks [at a time], while she went off chasing that dream of hers of becoming a professional singer.

Lilimae: I may have left Valene from time to time, but she was always with her daddy who loved her.

Gary to Valene: You got all the attention she used to get, right? Maybe she felt shut out by you and your daddy, and she figured the only way to get close was to make herself a star.

Lilimae to Valene: Your papa's insurance didn't hardly pay for [his] funeral. I couldn't even pay for your board with any neighbour folk.

Valene on Lilimae: She didn't even sing me "Little Maggie" [before she left].

Lilimae on her career: I was always kept at it. You make sacrifices for your talent. Talent is God-given so you have to do it. Sometimes your family doesn't understand that. They don't understand you're doing it for them. It's true, Val. You never knew that it was for you, did you?

Valene: That Christmas when Daddy died, I was with some neighbours and Mama swore up and down that she would come to Aunt June's to see me, if they could just get me there. So they carted me one hundred miles to Aunt June's, just to spend Christmas with Mama. She never came. Best she could do was send a patchwork quilt for me, store bought. I have hated patchwork ever since.

Lilimae: I set my mind on being a star. I chased my musical dreams my whole life. It was always just around the corner.

Val: I had the whooping cough and I had to stay home from school. My mama stayed with - wait a minute, it wasn't my mama - it was my Aunt Edna. She was pretty. She had beautiful eyes. She was very kind. She never got married though.

Val on Christmas 1953: I remember stringing popcorn and hanging it on the tree, and I remember Mama and me baking fruitcakes from Aunt Edna's own special recipe. Mama was so strict about every detail. Once a year she was a homemaker, so we had to do everything just perfect. I still remember how delicious those fruitcakes tasted. It's probably because Mama and I baked them together. I remember how Mama turned all the compliments to me - I'd done everything just right, you know, and I'd insisted on doing it a certain way - when it was really all her. She made me feel so proud of myself. That night, we stayed up all night talking. I was just a little girl, I was probably seven or maybe eight, but Mama talked to me like I was a woman. She asked me about my ambitions and my goals. I didn't have any, but she said I would real soon. She told me about her dreams, what her life was like. I thought being a grown up was the most exciting thing in the world. Two years later, Aunt Edna put me on a bus and I rode all the way to Nashville, all by myself. I went to the theatre where Mama was playing. She was an assistant to a magician, Alfonso the Great. I remember the theatre smelt old and dirty, and it was mostly empty. When I was backstage to see her, she was in this terrible flurry. She had to run across town and audition an act of her own. She didn't invite me along. She didn't even ask me to stick around so that we could talk later. I was just in the way. So I took the next bus back to Aunt Edna and I lied about what a wonderful time I'd had.

Lilimae: In those days, my ambition and my need for excitement were more important than anything else, or anyone else. I was convinced that I could do it all, especially if I weren't tied down. I lost my children and the only man I ever loved. I worried about my children. Even if I couldn't be with them, I worried about them. I wondered, "What would they become? Would they be safe? Would they be happy?" I was always hoping for something that would ease the worry. I ended up a lonely, confused woman with everything I owned in a shopping cart.
"We're going to kill them all, man! We're going to kill everybody with

Gary and Val (1960-63)

Lucy Ewing on her father Gary: Once upon a time, he went off and got this lovely fifteen year old girl pregnant, my mommy.

Val: Well, I was fifteen years old, fresh out from Tennessee, waitressing at this little diner just outside of Fort Worth, Texas, at the intersection of two highways.

Lucy to Val: But you said you were sixteen to get the job.

Val: Most of the customers were truck drivers and I was used to getting teased by them, but this one night, we were real busy. Mary Jo, the other waitress, had called in sick, and I was just trying my very best to keep on top of it. Everything backfired. First, one table started complaining, then another and another. Before I knew it, I was right in the middle of it all in tears, when this blond god got up from the counter and just started helping me. He didn't say a word to me, he just smiled at me, and I got this real flutter feeling in my tummy, and right away I knew everything was gonna be all right. It was Gary, the prettiest man I ever saw. I think I fell in love with him that very minute. He made me feel like a lady. He was there when I got off work to walk me home. "Miss Valene," he said, "I have the urge to ask you to marry me." I didn't know what to say, but he took that as a yes, and three days later we got married. Never even touched me. He never
even hardly kissed me till after. It was a good thing too, because I would have been scared. I mean, I was always a good girl. That's when I was the happiest, fresh out from Tennessee with Gary at the very beginning.

Gary to Val: You remember when your mother find us in the garage? I said we were looking for a pencil sharpener. It was the only thing I could think of.
Val: And then Mama said, 'You'd have better luck finding it, sweetpea, if you turn the light on.'"

Val on Gary: He was the dearest man I ever knew, every day I knew him, till he brought me home to meet his family. He kept saying no and stalling, but after you [Lucy] were on the way I made him take me home to meet them. Well, that was the biggest mistake of my whole life.

Lucy: He brought her home, but he couldn't do nothing right.

Val on the Ewings: Last thing they wanted was him being married to a nobody like me. Bobby was the only one who ever acted like he was on my side. I was just poor white trash from Tennessee who got Gary into trouble. I wasn't fit to be [Lucy's] mother. I had no business raising a Ewing, much less being one. We were so young, sometimes I wonder how we ever survived. He just wasn't strong enough to stand up to them,
especially to JR.

JR: I tried to annul that marriage to that trashy girl.

Val on her pregnancy craving: Watermelon pickle, I loved it.

Gary to Lucy: When you were a little baby, I used to dance with you every night. Of course, it's a little hard to dance to "Rock-A-Bye Baby".

Miss Ellie to Gary: You tried to stand on your own two feet when you had Lucy, and your family kicked your heels right out from underneath you.

Lucy on Gary: He started drinking all the time.

Val on Gary: I used to think that he drank because he didn't fit in, because his daddy and his brothers said he was weak and he had no character because he wasn't a tough and ruthless Ewing like them. I lived with Gary when he was drinking and I would see him drift away, even when we were sitting in the same room. I would watch him helplessly and I'd wonder what I was doing wrong, how I'd failed him. Well, I know now it wasn't me. There was nothing I could do to stop him and nothing I could blame myself for. The only thing I could do for Gary was stand by him and love him, and wait. Gary doesn't need a special reason to drink. He'll drink for any reason.

JR on Gary: He was scared of I don't know what. Always running away. Every time there's any pressure, any time there's any responsibility: out the door.

Jock on Gary: I tried to teach him to stand up and fight. It broke my heart when I found out he didn't have any guts.

Gary: Daddy never trusted me. He liked Val. He used to call her my anchor. As far as I could tell, I wasn't good for anything.
Val: Oh, that was your big brother talking, not you.
Gary: Well, I didn't do much thinking on my own in those days. All I knew was, I couldn't breathe on this ranch.

Lucy on Gary: He just came and went.

Gary to Lucy: I ran away from you and your mama a lot.

Lucy on Gary: Disappeared for weeks and months, came back again and started hitting my mom.

Bobby to Gary: I can remember Daddy and Mama sparring with words. I was just a kid when you left, but I can still remember them talking about you. And Daddy would say that you didn't have the Ewing guts, and Mama would say "Well, thank goodness for that", because she thought you had Southworth gallantry, and that was a much better thing to have. Mama thought guts were low grade courage, and gallantry was courage with grace.

Miss Ellie: [Jock] was always hard on Gary. Too hard. The Ewing men are strong - Jock, JR, Bobby. Lucy's father, he wasn't strong, couldn't compete. That's why he left.

JR on Gary: Did not leave. He flat ran out.

Jock on Miss Ellie: She held me responsible for running Gary off, but I loved [him].
Miss Ellie to Jock: But you never cared about him. You never took the time to find out about him.

Jock on Gary: Maybe I could've done better by him, but I didn't know how.

Gary: I was weak, and I let my father and my brother drive me away, and I ran.
Val: We would have gone with you.
Gary: To do what? To go where? I was a drunk and a gambler and a loser. I know it's no excuse, but when I left here, I didn't think they'd make you leave too. I thought I'd be back.
Val: As soon as you left, JR got rid of me.

JR on Val: I told that girl never to set foot in Texas again.

Val: I snuck back for Lucy and took her.

Lucy: When JR found out, he called some nice old boys in Dallas.

Val: JR sent some mean old boys after me to get Lucy back. And they followed me all the way to Tennessee.

Lucy on Val: They went after her. They caught up with her all the way over to Virginia.

Valene to Lilimae: It was me and my baby, and you turned us away.
Lilimae: How could I have let you in? If my manager had found out I was a grandmother, it would have been over.
Valene: What would have been over? Your wonderful career? When did that ever get started?
Lilimae: It could have been my big break. It almost was.
Valene: I told you that I was in trouble, Mama. Those old boys were after me, and when you wouldn't let me in, they caught me and they took my baby. They took her back to Texas, to Gary's folks. So I went back after her, and when I got back to Texas, those old boys wouldn't let me near the ranch.

Lucy on Val: They told her that if she ever came near Texas again, they'd kill her.

Val: Scared me half to death. They weren't fooling. I believe they'd have killed me soon as look at me.

Lucy on Val: One time I even heard she went to the law to get me back.

Valene: I went to the sheriff's office.

Lucy: Didn't amount to anything though.

Gary: The law was pretty tight with my family.
Val: And I can't tell you what that was like, knowing anything at all could be done to me, and there wasn't nothing the police would do about it because there wasn't any difference between those old boys and the police.

Lucy: It was JR who done it all.

Val: What did I have? Nothing. At least I knew Miss Ellie would raise Lucy right.

Miss Ellie to Val: I raised [Lucy] because the Ewings made it impossible for you to raise her, but I shouldn't have. I should have fought them, but I didn't.

Val on Lucy: I didn't see her again for fifteen years.

Miss Ellie to Bobby: Do you remember how I used to sit over there in that chair for hours, trying to feed Lucy? I was just so happy to have her here. What a beautiful child she was.
Bobby: I just remember she was awful stubborn, that's all.

Miss Ellie on Lucy: These strong Ewing men never had the strength to say no to her. And I haven't been any stronger. I always wanted a daughter. Maybe it's a good thing I never had one.

Lucy to Gary: While I was growing up and you and Mama weren't there, I must have had about ten thousand dreams about [my wedding] day, about walking down the aisle on your arm and Mama being there.

Ray to Lucy: I know it hasn't been easy for you growing up the way you did; no mama, no papa. I know you've been lonely a lot of the time.

Bobby on Lucy and Ray: She's been tagging around after him ever since she could walk. He always had time for when the rest of us thought we were too busy.

Pam to Lucy: This family's so full of guilt because your daddy ran away they let you run wild.

Sweethearts

Bobby on kissing Jenna for the first time: I was ten years old. I was scared out of my mind. I knew she was in the barn so I was going to go around the barn, climb up in the loft and sort of swing down on a rope, make an Errol Flynn entrance.
Jenna: He was trying to scare me.
Ray: He was famous for that sort of thing.
Bobby: The only problem was the rope was attached to the grain chute door so when I grabbed onto it and swung the doors open, a couple of thousand pounds of grain fell out.
Jenna: He wasn't welcome at my daddy's ranch for quite a while.
Bobby: Your daddy took it way too seriously.

Jenna: It made you really happy when I pushed Dotty Maypack into the pool because you asked her to the movies.
Bobby: I was only twelve years old at the time.

Jenna on nursing Bobby's injuries: It was after a dance you took me to over at the country club, one night when we were still in high school. I was having one little dance with somebody, Butch McKeown I think it was. You couldn't stand me dancing with him, so you tried to cut in and Butch didn't like that.
Bobby: Well, I didn't like Butch.
Jenna: You didn't like anybody who hung around me.

Bobby: Jenna is probably the first girl that I ever truly loved.

Jenna on herself and Bobby: We were in love with each other.

After Gary

Bobby: My brother Gary left, I didn't have anyone to talk to.

Taylor "Guzzler" Bennett: When Bobby came along in college, he was like an overgrown pup. I was older, I'd been around a little more. Bobby was impressionable. I became the guy he looked up to.

Bobby to Guzzler: I found I could talk to you about anything. We had some good times. I wouldn't have made the team if it hadn't been for you.
Guzzler: I could see it. You were a junior with all that ability and no confidence. All you needed was some help and someone to believe in you. That eighty yard run, I'll never forget it. You were the best quarterback that team ever had, kid. You always were a winner.

Bobby: Making the football team just wasn't enough. I had to be varsity, I had to be captain, I had to make All South West Conference and I did. I did all of that - because that's what Daddy expected, and that's what I expect from myself. The Ewings must succeed.

Jock the Rancher

Bobby to Ray: Do you remember the first time Daddy brought us here (the Fort Worth Cattle Auction)? I don't think I was anymore than fifteen years old. I remember you standing up and tipping your hat every time Daddy's back was turned.
Ray: When Jock would catch me doing that, he'd smack my hand down.
Bobby: Well, can you imagine standing up in the middle of an auction and tipping your hat? Daddy's afraid he'd buy himself a whole herd full of livestock.
Ray: Tell you a secret - that's exactly what I was trying to do!

The mid-60s: Cliff and Pam

Pam on Cliff: He had a real tough time growing up. He had to fight for everything. He worked his way through high school and college and then law school.

Cliff: Everybody liked Bobby Ewing. I went to college with him. He was the life of the campus. I liked him. He was a very neat eater. So when I had to clean up the dishes at his table, I'd look a his nice clean plate and admire his stylish clothing and think, "There but for the greed and avarice of Jock Ewing goes me.

David Stratton on Cliff: I went to school with him back at Texas University.

Pam: Peter [Larson] and Cliff were roommates in college.

Cliff: A legal assistant - I did that the first year I was out of law school.

Pam: Cliff was engaged to be married to a girl in New York.

Cliff: Penny Ames and I lived together for several months before she became pregnant. Peter knew her. She was his father's secretary. And Penny's dream was to enter law school. Saved every nickel toward her tuition. And she had just passed her entrance exams when she found out she was pregnant. I wanted to marry her, but she said that we weren't ready for a child. Abortions were illegal at the time and you couldn't just go to a hospital and have it taken care of properly. So I borrowed money and went to a doctor who had been recommended to us.

Pam on Penny: She died.

Cliff: I loved Penny, and I wanted to do what she wanted to do, and it just didn't work out. Penny's family were very religious and they wanted it kept quiet.

Pam: All the cheerleaders went to the Sun Bowl in El Paso. It was my first big trip away from home.

Cliff to Pam: Honey, you weren't allowed to cross the street by yourself up till then.
Pam: Digger was so worried, he insisted on going along as a chaperone.
Cliff: So you went across the border to Juarez, you met [Ed] Haynes, who you'd known for twenty minutes.
Pam: I was just a baby. He was going overseas, my first time away from home. It seemed romantic at the time. I was underage.

Ed Haynes to Pam: You weren't [underage] in Juarez, and neither was I.

Pam: Digger was sober and found me ten seconds after I said "I do." He took me home, called Maggie and she started the annulment procedure. It wasn't really a marriage. It was nothing. I never went to bed with him.

Ed: I was shipped out to 'Nam the next day.

Pam to Ed: The marriage was annulled. I wrote to you, trying to explain.
Ed: The mail wasn't very regular in North Vietnamese prison camps.

Heir Apparent

JR to Jock on the three Bs: Booty, booze and broads - first thing you told me a good lobbyist likes.

Jock: It's JR who devoted most of his time, most of his life to Ewing Oil.

JR: I worked for a number of years with Daddy side by side when he was running Ewing Oil.

Jock: When Bobby had time for nothing else but, well, sewing those wild oats of his, JR was right here working in the office, in the fields, anywhere I needed him. I trained JR, taught him everything he knows - gave him the fever for big business. But I never taught him when to stop.

Miss Ellie to Jock: You instilled in [JR] a desire for power and money. He doesn't seem to care about anything else.

Bobby: When I was a kid, I used to think I'd never want to run Ewing Oil, thought there'd be too much work. I used to look down my nose at the whole operation, the wheeling and dealing. I could never understand what Daddy and JR found so exciting about it.

Miss Ellie to Bobby: I used to think only JR was the true Ewing, that you and Gary were all Southworth.

Jenna to Bobby: I remember your daddy used to get angry if the family wasn't at the [dinner] table on time.

Jenna to Bobby: You used to be carefree, in fact downright irresponsible at times.

Bobby: I always enjoyed being with children. I used to coach Pop Warner football, Little League baseball.

JR to Bobby: While you were out there playing football and winning all those honours and everything, I'm not saying anything wrong with that, but I was here, busting my butt under our father, and let me tell you, he's not an easy man to work for.

1967: Enter Julie Grey

JR: She was my secretary for nine or ten years. Worked for my father the year before that. She was considered part of the family.

Julie Grey to Jock: Do you remember the fire in Coveton Field? You handled that fire almost single-handedly for three days - no sleep, no food. Men younger than you were collapsing. You seem to thrive on the excitement.

Assistant DA Sloane: Did Miss Gray have access to all of Ewing Oil's confidential files?
JR: She did.

Jock to JR on Julie: It seems like to me that you spent an awful lot of time together when she was working for you.

Bobby on Julie: She and JR had a thing going for years; not exactly an affair - well, not on a regular basis.

Jock to JR: You know I never did begrudge you boys having a good time. Hell, I always did!

JR to Julie: You're the only one that ever turned me on. You're the only one that knew how.
Julie: You taught me how. You told me what you liked.
JR: You're the only woman I could ever talk to, I could ever count on.
Julie: I loved you before Sue Ellen. I knew you'd never marry me, but I accepted the way things were.

Sue Ellen's story

Patricia Shepard to daughter Sue Ellen: I stayed with your father though he had far less to offer than JR.

Sue Ellen Ewing: The only thing I remember about my daddy was the smell of liquor on his breath. He left us right after Kristin was born. I guess it was a year later Mama got a letter saying he was dead.

Sue Ellen to Patricia: How hard you worked to turn me into the perfect wife.
Patricia: When your father died, that's all I devoted my life to. And I succeeded.

Sue Ellen: Mama wanted us girls to have everything she wanted, but couldn't get by herself. We were like little dolls created to fulfil all the things she wanted. She wanted wealth and position and decided we could get it for her.

Kristin Shepard, Sue Ellen's younger sister: I've had to put up with [Sue Ellen's] airs and graces all my life. "Look how pretty your sister is, Kristin. Look how well-behaved she is. Why can't you be well-behaved like that? No, you can't have a new dress, Kristin. We'll just make over one of Sue Ellen's. It'll be just fine."

Sue Ellen on Kristin: We didn't play together very much when we were growing up. She always made fun of my boyfriends. Then when she went to high school, she was no longer "Sue Ellen's little sister", she was Kristin. She had an identity. She was real smart.

Kristin to Sue Ellen: No one paid any attention to me until after you married JR.

Sue Ellen: I went away to college with two other girls. I was a popular girl, I was Campus Queen. Clint Ogden was the first man that I was ever in love with. [We] went to the University together. When I was in love with him, I was a very happy young lady. It was a wonderful part of my life.

Clint: You remember our first date?
Sue Ellen: Yes I do. You wore a rented tuxedo and the left bow tie kept coming unstuck, and I wore a beautiful black formal, trying very hard to look thirty, or at least twenty. We went to the Starlight Room at the
Grandview.
Clint: You always were a romantic.

Sue Ellen: Remember that important afternoon we planned?
Clint: Oh yes. I cut basketball practice.
Sue Ellen: And I cut cheerleading.
Clint: That motel had the brightest neon light I ever saw.
Sue Ellen: And we were so sure that everyone was watching us.
Clint: I wanted you so much. Then I came up four dollars short on the room. Maybe if I could have afforded caviar in those days, you wouldn't have gotten way from me. We might have ended up married.

Sue Ellen: JR fell in love with me because I was a beauty queen. I was Miss Texas.

Clint on Sue Ellen: The fact is, I thought she was my girl till [JR] stole her away from me.

MC of the Miss Texas beauty pagent, 1967: "From Austin, we have Sue Ellen Shepard. Twenty years old. Five foot, seven-and-a-half inches. Brunette. She is a senior at the University of Texas. The eyes of Texas are upon you."

JR: Once upon a time, I was a judge in the Miss Texas beauty contest. I was young and wild. I'd never seen so many gorgeous women in one place in my whole life. After a while, you run all those girls through the contest and it looks like a cattle auction in Fort Worth.
Sue Ellen: I felt the same way too.

Payton Allen: What you do for the talent contest, honey?
Sue Ellen: I sang.

JR: Then we got down to the bathing suit category and all those pretty little girls prancing around, trying to look sexy. And then there you were, Sue Ellen. Not trying to do anything, just looking more sexy than any of them. And you had something else. You looked like a lady. The combination was devastating. It was the first time I set eyes on you, Sue Ellen.

JR on Sue Ellen: Good Lord, she had the most beautiful eyes in Texas. She was so tall and shy. Those wonderful eyes were filled with fire and spirit. You never saw anything like it. There were thirty-two women up there on that stage and I couldn't see any of them but her. I knew she'd win. From the minute I laid eyes on her, I knew she'd win.

Sue Ellen: I was voted Miss Texas. I didn't get Miss America. I didn't even make it to the final. I cried for three days.

Sue Ellen to JR: My mama didn't want me to marry you at first. She had Billy Frompton picked out for me. His daddy was loaded. He had oil and uranium and diamonds and coal and things like that.

JR: You picked me because of my eyes? I thought it was my money.
Sue Ellen: Well, I had several suitors with a lot of money. No, it was your eyes. It's the first thing that attracted me to you. They always seemed to be hiding secrets, things you knew about the world that no one else knew. And because of the way you speak. Every time you talked to me, I got the shivers. I was so frightened when you first brought me to Southfork to meet your parents. They were such imposing figures, I never thought they'd like me.
JR: Mama took to you right off and Daddy too.

Julie to JR: She [Sue Ellen] was Miss Texas, prettiest girl in the state. A credit to you and your family.

Cliff to Sue Ellen: You used JR to get position and wealth.

Jock makes a will (1968)

Harve Smithfield to JR and Bobby: It was drawn [in] April. As young as you boys were, your mama would get 100% of Ewing Oil. There are the usual provisions for grandchildren, even though Lucy was the only one born at the time. Jock was furious with Gary. He passed him off with a gesture. Gary would get virtually nothing. [Ray] would get a very minor bequest.

The newlyweds

Sue Ellen: I believe my wedding day [February 15th, 1970] was the most wonderful day of my life. It was lovely. White orchids everywhere. Baby's breath. All those bridesmaids, all those ushers. Hundreds and hundreds of people.

Gary to Kristin: We met once. You were about ten, I think.

Sue Ellen: I was much older [than Kristin was] before I figured out I was just living Mama's dreams.

JR to Sue Ellen: I wonder why I married you in the first place.
Sue Ellen: Well, among other reasons, you couldn't get me into bed unless you did. It seemed to be real important to you.

JR on Sue Ellen: When we were first married, I just loved her so much. I don't know where it all went wrong.

Miss Ellie to JR: From the day you brought that girl into this house you neglected her. First for the business, then with other women. You didn't even bother to be discreet most of the time. You just never gave her half a chance. Just because I didn't say anything doesn't mean I haven't watched and seen.

Jock: There comes a time and place when fun stops and you start facing up to your responsibilities, JR. You always had that place in business, but not at home. I just could never understand why not.

Sue Ellen on her marriage: I accepted the way things were. I used to live for [charity] meetings. They were the only things that gave my life meaning.

Sue Ellen to Bobby: If I'd only met you first, I would have married you instead of JR. You were so sweet and dashing and handsome, [but] I never got the feeling that you cared. I got the feeling I was just someone you said hello to in the morning.
Bobby: Well, Sue Ellen, you don't leave a whole lot of room for much else.

Bobby to Julie: It probably would have been a lot easier if JR had married you instead.
Julie: Well, that wasn't exactly my decision.

Julie to JR: All these years, you've been coming here, and I let you. I never asked you for anything. I knew you'd never leave Sue Ellen. I knew I'd never be anything in your life but a convenience. But I was here when you wanted me and I was grateful for the time that you gave me.

Pam to Julie: You settled for what you could have with JR. Maybe if you'd stood your ground, you could have been Mrs Ewing.

Sue Ellen on marriage to a Ewing: First they lavish you with attention, affection and every material possession you could ever hope to have. And then, for no reason at all, they just walk away from you. And then you compete with the only thing they know and love - power, and more power.

Bobby and Jenna (1970)

JR to Jenna: You and Bobby made a beautiful couple. I always thought so.

Jenna on herself and Bobby: An All American Boy and one madcap heiress.

Bobby: Maybe if we hadn't tried to set the world on fire, if we'd taken it a little slower, we might not have split up.
Jenna: Have you forgotten who introduced me to the good life, to the dizzy
pace?
Bobby: And offered you an alternative.
Jenna: That's wonderful! "Here you are, little girl - champagne, private jets to Paris, yachts in Rio, and just when you've learned to love it all, let me take you away from it."
Bobby: I never meant to take you away from it. I asked you to marry me, just before an Oil Baron's Ball. You were supposed to be my date. We were going to announce our engagement.

JR to Jenna: I always thought it was a shame you and Bobby never got married. It would have been nice having you within reach.

Jenna: It was complicated. When I let [Bobby] go, I was twenty. That's my excuse for being a fool. I was so young. I was having the time of my life. Bobby, I did love you, but I'd known you all my life. At the time I thought I wanted excitement more than love, and I just thought you'd always be there when I was ready.

Bobby to Jenna: You ran off with someone else.

Cliff on Bobby and Jenna: I wasn't exactly taken into the Ewings' confidence, but the way I heard it was that she jilted Bobby, and then she goes off to Europe.

Dallas Press headline: "Jenna Wade, Daughter of Lucas Wade, Books Passage on Luxury Liner."

Jenna: It offered a lifestyle I liked, and they did still think I was an heiress.

European newspaper headlines: "Heiress In Berlin", "Jenna Wade Believed to be in Roma", "Jenna Wade Marries Count Naldo Marchetta", "Heiress Married In Roma".

Jenna to Bobby: I married Naldo on an impulse after running away from you. I became pregnant almost immediately. It didn't take me long to realise I'd made the biggest mistake of my life - I gave up the man that I really loved for this … person. So I left him. A few months later, Charlie was born. I don't know why, but lying there in the maternity ward, I became very frightened that somehow Naldo, who couldn't care less about children, would one day come back into my life and hurt me. He was in Rome. He was an Italian citizen, I wasn't and I didn't know how well the Italian laws would protect me.
Bobby: So you listed me as the father even though you were still legally married to him?
Jenna: I listed you because I didn't want him to be father of record and then one day come back and have future claim on my baby.
Bobby: Didn't it occur to you that Charlie was going to grow up some day and she might see her birth certificate and wonder why she's listed as Charlotte Ewing?
Jenna: I wasn't thinking that far ahead. I was scared. I was doing what I had to do.

Cliff on Jenna and Naldo: They got divorced. She shows up in Dallas with a daughter that's supposed to be his, but she calls herself Wade. The daughter is [the same age as the length of time] she and Bobby would have been married.

JR: I never thought that that child was the product of Jenna Wade and some phony Italian count.

Bobby on Jenna's daughter: Ever since I first saw her, I thought she was mine.

Bobby to Jenna: I asked you once if she were mine. You never gave me a straight answer.
Jenna: You didn't seem too anxious to know at the time.

Jenna to Bobby: I never lied. I never said she was yours.
Bobby: You let me go around for years thinking she could be. You just kept leading me on.
Jenna: I never meant to. It wasn't something that I consciously planned to do.

Jenna to Bobby: Daddy died, and I found out that that vast estate was really a vast collection of unpaid bills and judgements.

Sue Ellen on Jenna: She broke her father's heart when she had that child, didn't she? He lost interest in the business and was ruined.
Jock: Lucas Wade never was any good at business.

Jenna: Old Lucas Wade turned the richest fields in East Texas into dust by the time I was sixteen.

Jock on Lucas: He took his daddy's money and just threw it away. Jenna had nothing to do with it.

Jenna to Bobby: I couldn't come back to you, not after running off with Naldo, and then there was Charlie to think about. I couldn't let her suffer because Daddy had been wild, because I'd been wild. So when [Senator] Maynard [Anderson] came along, he was just what I needed. He was good to Charlie, and to me.

Bobby on Jenna: She was the best thing that ever happened to me. Then she left, and it took me a long time to get her out of my mind.

Back in Alaska

Jack Ewing, Jason's son: Things got real rough in Alaska. Even little Jamie [his sister] used to work ten, twelve hour shifts, no school. All the while I was growing up, my daddy would boast to me about this document he had giving him ownership of one third of Ewing Oil, but he never said anything to Jamie when she was around, just me.

On the Road

Bobby: Daddy taught me a lot of tricks in my early days with the company, things that I hated doing, but I learned and I learned real well, and I can get right down in the mud if I have to.

Carl Daggett, club owner, on Bobby: You should have seen him in the old days. He was a real playboy, right Bobby? Your style, my ladies. Good for Ewing Oil, too.
Bobby: Nobody enjoyed it more than I did.

JR to Bobby: You never really took an interest in the business.
Bobby: That's not true.
JR: You worked, but to you it was like play time.

JR to Pam: Before he met you, Bobby was The stud in Dallas.

Bobby: I wasn't just a road man for Ewing Oil, I was the best road man for any oil company - because that's what Daddy expected.

JR to Bobby: Daddy called you the company pimp.

JR to Bobby: While you've been out there, spreading the Bs around, wining and dining friends of Ewing Oil and hanging out with fancy women and in general being charming, I've been making the company work, and I've been making it grow.

Changing of the Guard

Bobby to JR: When Daddy retired, he very ceremoniously presented you with the combination of the safe.

Sue Ellen on Jock: He gave his eldest son the biggest toy a father can give - Ewing Oil.

JR: Daddy, when you told me to take over Ewing Oil, you told me I could handle it any way I saw fit.

Jeb Ames, cartel member, to JR: Smartest thing old Jock ever did was putting you in charge.

JR: I've had to make decisions and I've had to make deals that a man that runs a company has to make, and that's my business and mine alone.

JR and Ray

JR to Ray: We used to run around a little, when I was a Ewing and you were a Krebbs and everyone was comfortable.

Bonnie, a girlfriend of Ray's: Do you remember the time Hooper's pond froze over? You drove your truck right onto the ice. It broke right through. It took us the whole weekend to thaw out.

Dick, Ray's drinking buddy: So this guy, he decides he's gonna fight Ray. This guy's grown up in Boston, right? He's seen "The Wild Bunch" six times. It's his life's ambition to be in a real Western bar fight. So Ray says, "Gimme twenty bucks, I'll fight you." So the kid slips him twenty bucks. Ray picks up the kid, slides him about thirty feet down the bar, knocks over half the beers in Texas, gives the bartender twenty dollars to pay for everyone's spilt beer. The kid gets up, walks over to him and says to Ray, "Is that all I get for my twenty bucks?"

Ray to JR: You helped me out of some tough scrapes, JR. More than once. We were friends for a long time. I just keep thinking of all the good times we had. Like in Waco. Or what about that time down in Houston when you had them all convinced you were the talent scout for the Miss Texas contest and I was the front man?
JR: Yeah, they almost killed us with kindness, didn't they?

Ray, Pam and Bobby

JR on Pam: Hell, Ray Krebbs has been telling me about that girl for years.

Ray to Pam: We was good. Real good.

JR to Bobby: [Pam] got into plenty of trouble before you all got married. Just off hand, there was Ray Krebbs and Jack whatsisname.

Sue Ellen to Pam: How many men paid your bills before you found Bobby to pick up the tab?
Pam: Nobody paid my bills. I worked. I wanted to [be a designer].

JR: Bobby, you could have had any woman in Texas.
Bobby: I didn't want that anymore.

Bobby: Pam, I remember the first time I saw you.
Pam: I couldn't believe that Ray was taking me to a Ewing barbecue - and that I went!
Bobby: You looked so pretty that night. I couldn't stand the fact that you spent the whole evening dancing with Ray Krebbs. I can still remember the look on Ray's face when I cut in on that dance.

Lucy to Ray: While you were getting soused, they [Pam and Bobby] were getting chummy.

Ray on Pam and Bobby: I didn't know they were getting on that well.

Pam on Ray: I'm sure he had big plans for me for the rest of the evening.
Bobby: I'm sure he did, and I'm glad I spoiled them.
Pam: So am I.

Pam: Who said we should elope to New Orleans?
Bobby: I did.

Bobby: I'm not sure I can even tell you how the whole thing happened, except that I said, "I love you," and she said, "I love you," and I said, "Are you sure?" and she said, "Of course I'm sure." So I said, "Let's get married, right here in this old city of New Orleans!" She said, "Bobby Ewing, that's about the dumbest idea I've ever heard." Twenty minutes later, there we were, standing in front of that old Baptist preacher saying, "I will." "I will." And that was that.

Pam: Bobby Ewing marrying Digger Barnes's daughter! We were both scared to death.

Bobby: Do you remember what our wedding music was?
Pam: How could I forget - 'The Saints Come Marching In'.
Bobby: Played by the wife of the Justice of the Peace on the worst piano I've ever heard in my life.

Bobby: Who picked the motel on the drive back to Dallas?
Pam: Guilty. And there was no heat.
Bobby: The coldest winter in the history of Texas.
Pam: And I married a man who swiped the covers in the middle of the night.
Bobby: I don't remember you suffering a great deal. Besides, no matter how cold it was in the motel, it was warmer than the reception we got back at Southfork ...