‘Dallas’ Star Patrick Duffy Says Cast Drank Champagne All Day on Set

Gabrielle Moss December 18, 2024

Dallas, Patrick Duffy, Larry Hagman, champagne — Everett Collection

Patrick Duffy’s character on Dallas, Bobby Ewing, lived an extravagant lifestyle — but as the actor recently revealed, the show’s cast lived extravagantly, too, sipping champagne all day long on set as they filmed.

During an interview with the Step By Step rewatch podcast Keanan and Lakin Give You Déjà Vu, hosted by Duffy’s former TV daughters Christine Lakin and Staci Keanan, Duffy remembered the shocking — and shockingly luxurious — drinking habits the cast indulged in throughout the show’s 14 seasons.

Duffy’s first meeting with his TV brother and real-life best friend, Larry Hagman, involved cracking open a bottle of bubbly, he revealed: during the first cast meeting at the studio, he and Hagman “sat down and drank champagne before we ever started reading the pilots of Dallas, to get to know each other. That was the beginning of the relationship. But I remember being introduced to everybody, and I shook Hagman’s hand. And I went home that day after the whole process and I told my wife, I said, ‘I think I met my best friend today.’ ”

DALLAS, Patrick Duffy, Victoria Principal, Barbara Bel Geddes, Larry Hagman, Charlene Titlon, Jim Davis, Linda Gray, (Season 1), 1978-1991

Everett Collection

The champagne continued to flow once they started shooting episodes of Dallas — even though filming began early in the morning. “When we started working, every morning that we would be working together on the set, we’d get a call time, usually, you know, 7, 6 o’clock call time,” Duffy said. “I would pull into MGM. We’d park the cars. We’d go to Hagman’s room. We’d open a bottle of champagne. We’d have a glass of champagne every morning to start the day.”

Duffy would then take a break from drinking for a few hours, but “[Hagman] would continue. And in the course of the day, he’d get through three or four bottles of champagne. Work. And then, you know, they’d break for lunch and so we’d go across the street, instead of the commissary, because they don’t serve alcohol in the commissary. We went to the Backstage Tavern … and we’d have a couple of drinks and a hamburger, and then come back and and do the second half of the day.”

DALLAS, from left: Patrick Duffy, Larry Hagman, 'Three Hundred', season 12, ep. 19, aired 3/17/1989, 1978-1991.

CBS /courtesy Everett Collection

Eventually, once the cast settled into a groove, they developed a ritual to mark the end of the day: once they sensed that filming was about to finish, they’d catch the eye of someone on the crew, who would serve them tequila. “We’d have a little shot of tequila before we wrapped because we knew it wouldn’t kick in till they called wrap. And then, that was it. That was my work day with Hagman for 13 years,” said Duffy.

Duffy did not say if the show’s 2012 reboot also involved that much champagne (Hagman appeared in the reboot, before dying of leukemia in 2012 at age 81). He did, however, give an answer as to how the Ewing clan were able to stay standing after consuming all that booze: “That was the ’80s.”