Patrick Duffy: “I never thought I would fall in love again.”
His longevity and his wisdom are certainly one reason Patrick Duffy has been getting positive accolades not only from the audience but also from all his colleagues for the last forty years. The actor went through a range of successful and dramatic events like rarely in a lifetime and always with an impeccable moral elegance. He explains for us his journey, his memories of Dallas, his return on the Bold and Beautiful (that will air on CTV2 on November 23rd and 28th) and his new love with actress: Linda Purl.
You are reprising your role of Steven Logan on the show: The Bold and Beautiful .But this time is around, it’s going be a bit different in the sense that Linda is going to play your girlfriend. How does it feel?
Patrick Duffy :It feels very familiar. And let me put it that way. It’s wonderful. Actually, we just came off a seven month road tour in the United Kingdom of a play, working together. And it’s just a normal part of us as a couple now, we’ve done a TV movie, we’ve done this seven-month tour and a play and now Bold and Beautiful. It’s a wonderful thing, we love being together. And so going to work together, coming home together and being on stage together is a perfect combination right now for both of us.
Can you tell us a bit about the difference between the couple you portray on screen and the real one at home?
Patrick Duffy: I can’t reveal too much, because we’ve only done two episodes. Prior to me playing the part, Robert Pine played the part of Steven Logan years ago, and then about eight years ago, I believe I took over. Brad Bell (the showrunner) was really wonderful when I read the earlier type of character that Steven Logan was, I thought, well, that’s a nice beginning for him. But I think he should have learned something by now be a little more forceful, be a better father be a little more in control of himself. And Brad was very keen to do that. So eight years ago, my character became a better father, a better hopeful husband. But then that turned out to be tragic. But the character I thought was on a great arc. And I had a wonderful time doing it. And then I got the reboot of Dallas and I had to leave the show. I would have loved to have stayed on the Bold and Beautiful. But I had to leave the show because I was committed to doing Dallas.
Brad and I over the years have talked about why wouldn’t it be fun to do Steven Logan again ? And the opportunity came up. And in the conversation I said :” Well, he’s a widower. Now he has no wife. What about Linda and I doing it because we’ve been working together ? And we work together very well. And she’s a remarkable actress. Probably one of the best actresses I’ve ever worked with. And I’ve worked with some good ones. And he thought that was a great idea to bring back Steven with a new woman in his life. And we walked through the door on the first episode that first day last Monday. And it was well written because the three girls my wonderful daughters, who I’m so thrilled to be back with Kelly and Jennifer and Heather. then it’s. So the first two episodes were very good episodes for us as a couple. It established us as a loving couple. We weren’t married yet, but loving couple. The three daughters liked my new girlfriend. And then that setup for whatever may happen in the future. And I don’t know what will happen in the future. So I can’t give you a spoiler in any way, shape or form.
Are you willing to do more episodes?
Patrick Duffy: Oh, not only willing, I’m actually begging Brad to bring us back to do some more. You have to understand that daytime serials like Bold and Beautiful have such an established rhythm of work.. Trust in the other actors because they do this incredible workload on a daily basis. And stepping into that venue is the most comfortable thing in the world for an actor to do. And Linda and I both love it. She did another soap before. And we love the pace. We love being on our toes all the time. You have to do your best work on the first take because they’re moving on if you don’t. All of that fits our work ethic extremely well. And we are campaigning to have those two characters come back if they will. All right.
You met Linda through video chat messages. Did you ever think that you will meet your partner one day, in that way, because this is pretty peculiar?
Patrick Duffy: You know, I not only didn’t think I’d meet anybody on Zoom, but I wasn’t looking to meet anybody ! I had been a widower for almost four years. And I was comfortable. I had a beautiful family, two children, four grandchildren. And I was just assuming that this would be the rest of my life, living comfortably, and being around my family. And then the COVID hit. I have known Linda for over 40 years. Since the show :Man from Atlantis stays, and then we never met again. But we knew of each other, I almost did her first television show, and took Dallas. Instead, we met at a couple of celebrity events. She came to London to see her dear friend Richard Thomas in a play that I was in with him. Then we didn’t see each other for 20 years. And we met at a Hollywood function, a celebrity function. She came up to see Linda Gray who was with me, and not even to see me, I remembered her. And we reintroduced ourselves. And Richard is a dear friend of mine. I had lost his telephone number. So I said: “Here’s my phone number, please give it to Richard, when you go back to New York”. And that’s what started our communication. A few months later, the COVID hit. Richard and Linda and I were texting, and Richard dropped out and had other things to do. And Linda and I would send a text message to each other every week or so, just to see how you’re doing, you know, are you getting sick ?… We were both isolated. She was in her home right now in Colorado, I was at my ranch in Oregon,. And we first started texting. Then we decided to do FaceTime because we had no one else to talk to. And FaceTime became zoom. And as we talked, we got to know each other on a deeper level. We would talk literally for two to three hours, every single night, seven days a week for almost two months. And after a while you stop saying hi, how are you? And what do you have for dinner? And you start saying, you know, who’s your favorite poet? What’s your music? Tell me about your family. And we got to know each other so well, that the conversation became very emotional. And at one point in signing off, instead of saying good night, I said: “Well, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Goodnight, I love you.” I hung up and I realized, oh my god, I said I love you. That’s when it dawned on me that I was more than just a friend with this woman and I had really been attracted to her. So shortly thereafter, I got in my car. And I drove from Oregon to Colorado took 23 hours, I ended up on the doorstep of this house. And I’ve never left !
A beautiful story….
Patrick Duffy: It was so unexpected. And I think for that reason, it was so true.Neither of us were chasing after a relationship. And we’d lived a full life, both of us. And we realized that we were attracted to each other as really meaningful people.So that’s why, whether it’s working with her, or going on a trip with her, or, you know, spending 24 hours a day, seven days a week with her is more than normal. It’s what I yearn for on a regular basis. So to go back and play Steven Logan and to have her be my Lucy partner is a as another dream come true. And good things happen at COVID not just bad things.
You’ve experienced an extreme life with a lot of range of emotions, events. It takes ten lives for certain people to go through what you went through. As a human being, how did you cope with all those events and emotion and with such elegance?
Patrick Duffy: That’s a remarkable question. Franck. I think every human being has the capability of doing that. I think our our life experience either limits or expands that capability. I was very fortunate 50 years ago, to have my wife at that time. It introduced me to the practice of Buddhism. Now, you know, this form of Buddhism that I practice does not limit my lifestyle, I don’t go away to a hermitage somewhere. I don’t spend hours contemplating things. It’s a very laity based practice of Buddhism, I studied the philosophy, but I also spend at least an hour a day chanting. And it’s an ability of every human being to create value under any circumstance, good or bad. Let’s say a good circumstance can elevate you, but it can also be an obstacle. You can get carried away by it, or a really bad instance in your life can destroy you, or you can rise above it, learn from it and use it to create value somewhere. And my Buddhist practice has allowed me to do that not, by virtue of me trying to do that by virtue of 50 years of this inconspicuous, but upward level of developing myself, which I did not try to do, just like I didn’t try to find a new love in my life. I didn’t practice Buddhism to become a deeper, more meaningful person. I just practiced it because it felt right.
I’ve gone through things, my parents were both murdered. And that was something that could have taken me in any given direction.
Patrick Duffy :I experienced the loss. But my practice of Buddhism also, you know, postulates that life is eternal, that I still have a direct line of communication with all living and non living beings. So why not my parents? Why not continue to support them the way that I would support them? Are they right next to me? And not only that, what, what does that ability to do that encourage other people to go through obstacles that could be devastating? Can they find a way out of it, and if I can, anybody can believe me. And then my career could be what everybody dreams of doing. But I’ve known many, many people whose wonderful career surges, and success has derailed them, and brought obstacles into their lives. It’s not something that I consciously try to do. It’s something that feels right at the moment that I see the environment encouraging me to do that. I feel great satisfaction in just being a normal person who has great fortune ,and has the venue like this, to relate certain things to a greater number of people than I would if were just walking the street. Everything in my life has been to my advantage, even the negative things, I have found him to be invaluable, not just to my structure as a human being my happiness factor, but also to my ability to, to, you know, serve as some kind of example of what’s possible. And that encourages me to continue. And I get encouragement from the things that happen to me like Linda, you know, with my wife dying, four years ago,I never thought I would fall in love again, because I was madly in love for 46 years. And then the universe showed me by putting this woman in my environment that you can love with that kind of passion, a limitless amount of people, which means that the world can be a better place if everybody thinks that they can love every other person. Everything is usable if you decide to use it.
How do your sons Padraic and Conor react to your life, to your longevity in this business, to what you went through?
Patrick Duffy: My eldest son is 48. So for the first 43 and a half years of his life, and then my younger son for all of his life, basically, they had two people to look at and my wife Carlyn was an incredible example. And I think her approach to life with me was a better example for them than my example of going through that life. Because she did what they would need to do is she lived with me. Through the years where we didn’t have anything. And then when fortune smiled on my career, she was the rock in the center and the support and the example for both my boys as to what people do when somebody else achieved that kind of thing that I did with television. She was the example for them to follow in the sense of my professional career.
I take great joy in the fact that and I’m very grateful for the fact that I was fortunate to always work in the best circumstances.
Patrick Duffy:From the man from Atlantis, I had the most wonderful costars and people around me directors. Belinda Montgomery was a mentor to me. I was a carpenter building a boat when I got that show. And she was an actress who has been on television for years. And I learned so much from her. And we to this day, our dear friends, then I got Dallas and Larry Hagman became my best friend in the world. And every member of that cast was like a family for 13 years. And it was a joy to go to work, I never had a bad day at work. So my boys were able to see that the film business, the television business, can be a wonderful example of how to just have a good life, to make a good living to have joy going to work every day. And then I did the show: Step by Step with Suzanne Somers. My boys were really coming of age when my eldest son was in college, my youngest son was in high school. And again, it was the best seven years of working experience. And Suzanne Somers became my dearest friend and is to this day. So I’ve been fortunate to be in circumstances that were perfect in terms of a television career. My children were able to see you can be a normal family, and have a great career, and work in this business. And, and even not have a great career, but just enjoy being in the, in the arts. And both of my sons have pursued lives in the arts. I think they’ve done it, not just because of me, but because of the entire circumstance of our family. And I’m very happy and proud and grateful for that.
Dallas remains such an iconic show. When was the moment you realize this show was becoming a worldwide phenomenon?
Patrick Duffy: It was a more gradual thing for me. Larry hit the the ball out of the park with the character of Jr. and he loved to travel. So, every time we there was a vacation, he was up or he would be, you know, in Canada.He and I both loved going to Canada over the years. And the international attention was what really triggered our understanding that this was a phenomenon, not just a job. He hit me the first time I went to England actually. It was in year three of the show. The public attention to that show was startling, much more so than living in Los Angeles where people are a bit inured to seeing celebrities. But elsewhere in the world, and even elsewhere in the United States it was an oddity, to see a celebrity and then to see somebody that was on a show as iconic as Dallas was a phenomenon to them, and then likewise became so to me. And it dawned on me when I realized that when the who shot Jr. meteoric rise of the show happened, and everybody’s attention was towards every member of the cast, not just me, not just Larry, but Linda and Barbara and Jim Davis and Charlene and Victoria and Linda, great, everybody, Steve…We literally could not go anywhere without the public attention, all focusing on you because of the celebrity nature of the show. And I had two children that were very young. I felt very protective of their anonymity and their ability to be in public without me and being under scrutiny. I just felt there has to be someplace where my family can feel ordinary. That would be our home ! That would be when we come in and lock the door. That was our privacy, our paradise. All of those things happened about year three of the show. And from then on, it’s an oddity in our business. And I know you do interviews with a lot of people, and they will cooperate with this. Most of the time when you’re on a television series. At the end of the season. You wonder if you’re going to come back. You wonder what your next job will be, hoping you get another audition for 11 years in a row. None of us on the cast of Dallas questioned what we would be doing next year, the following year. We knew we were coming back, we knew and that is a rarity in our business. It’s such a privilege to have an opportunity like that. So those were the things that were a phenomenon. And the fun thing for me is, I’m an actor that has a theme song. You know, everywhere in the world, people will go (Patrick sings the notes of the famous tune)They all know that music and I thought, all those years I grew up watching Johnny Carson and have his music, or Bob Hope having Thanks for the memories. And I thought, I now have a song that whenever anybody thinks of me, and that happens to this day, when we were on tour in England, we came out the stage door, and inevitably, the people outside started singing the Dallas theme song. And it’s wonderful. It’s such a privilege and I’m filled with gratitude every day.
So talking about song, you did a duet in France with Mireille Mathieu in 1983 :”Together we’re strong” What memories do you keep about this experience ?
Patrick Duffy:There’s a reason I didn’t have a musical career. And that’s the reason ! (laugh)That’s another thing. I only was asked to do that because of the show Dallas, obviously. But Mireille is one of the most legendary French singers with Edith Piaf, Sylvie Vartan, Charles Aznavour. I thought :why not? Even if I looked foolish, even if they had to write a song that only had two notes for me,I would have not missed that opportunity for the world. And I look at that I’m not even embarrassed by it anymore. Because I just think that’s a chance in a lifetime. And I took it. And then years later, this was maybe three years ago or so, Mireille and I went back and relive that moment and I lip synced. We both did that song. And that was like 30 years after we had done it. But again, it’s it’s a privilege of being in this business to have done that. It’s not the best singing you’ll ever hear. But you see a happy man doing it.
INTERVIEW: FRANCK RAGAINE
