THE MAKING OF “WHO SHOT J.R.?”

THE PLOT:

Through the 4 episodes following the attempted murder, the identity of J.R.´s mysterious assailant is being revealed and false clues appear in order to confuse the viewer. For instance, it´s hinted that oil baron JORDAN LEE could have done it, in one scene where the old man calls on J.R. and tells him that it would be a pity if he was shot again there.
On the other side, CLIFF is dismissed from his charge as attorney´s assistant: "someone as smart as CLIFF BARNES really uses his own gun…?" The nightmare tormenting SUE ELLEN seems to be apparently enlightening:
"I´m running down this long long corridor. People with white coats are chasing me; at the end of that long corridor, there is a door and I reach that door, I´ll be free. And I keep running and running, and I finally get at that door, and J.R. is standing there, he´s blocking my way. And all of a sudden, I hear this sound of a shooting and I look down, and there´s a gun in my hand. Then I realize that I shot J.R.; the door wasn´t there and I realize that I´ll never ever be free..."
CLIFF tells his sister that the shooting´s night he had been at the Ewing Building with a pistol to shoot him and, when he arrived, had discovered that someone had advanced on him. Thus CLIFF´s name is eliminated on the third episode, after being the prime suspect along with SUE ELLEN. Though his sincerity is not exemplary, his relationship with PAM is.


In another scene, KRISTIN offers her sister all her support: "You count on me SUE ELLEN. I´ll always be by your side from now on." When the two women separate, KRISTIN looks at her sister going away as she looks serious and watchful. A little later, she visits J.R. "When a man is confined to a hospital bed, his power just slips away. You´ll never be the man you once were, J.R."

A few days after, JOCK and ELLIE make a surprising discovery in J.R.´s closet: the pistol used to shoot J.R. The only fingerprints found there are...SUE ELLEN´s. Consequently J.R.´s wife is arrested, record and imprisoned.


The Ewings refuse to bail her out, but still so the woman is released. A new enigma is featured: Who bailed her out? In an upcoming episode, we´ll know it was DUSTY. Once out SUE ELLEN begs KRISTIN to let her stay with her for awhile. "Stay as long as you like - she says with a fake smile – after all, what are sisters for?"


SUE ELLEN is convinced that she has to remember what happened the shooting´s day and agrees to go under hypnosis, by suggestion of Dr. ELBY: "I took J.R.´s gun and came here to see you. I told you: “I can´t rely on anyone else to do what I have to do.” I started to go straight at J.R., but I needed a drink, certainly for courage. I called J.R., he wasn´t in his office, but I knew where he was; with my sister. I went to KRISTIN´s, but he wasn´t there.
"KRISTIN gave me a drink to calm me down, then I had some more drinks and…I don´t know”. After regaining conscience, SUE ELLEN explains that she woke up at the airport, with a big hangover. When she came at Southfork, found no one and, a little later, KRISTIN´s arrival helped to clear up her doubts.
Dr. ELBY makes up a question overlooked by them: When did she put the gun back into the closet? She did not, since she perfectly remembers that changed her purse. Then, who did it? Right away SUE ELLEN is driven to the ranch, where she meets J.R. in his wheelchair. The woman is lucky to find KRISTIN there too. As kindly and innocently as she has been in the last weeks, the young woman listens to SUE ELLEN´s story:


"You were right: I was at that condo that night, looking for J.R., and you saw I had his gun. But you saw how drunk I was and you still gave me a drink, knowing I´d put the gun there to take it. You went to the office that night with J.R.´s gun. It was you, KRISTIN, who shot J.R. And the next morning, when I was showering, you hid the gun in the closet.” After these words, J.R. tries to call the police. But KRISTIN sarcastically announces: "I wouldn´t do that if I were you, J.R., not unless you want your child born in prison.”
The news is like a bombshell to the couple, who fight for the phone. J.R. does not take long time to make a choice: "Nobody´s going to jail, I´ll handle KRISTIN my own way..."


THE REST IS HISTORY.

THE MAKING OF “WHO SHOT J.R.?”

Now, to remember how the famous cliffhanger of JR being shot was done, we will give the word to their authors, beginning with retired producer PHILIP CAPICE:



"As DALLAS was developing, there seemed to be a special audience fascination with J.R., this guy they hated and loved. We kept getting letters asking: "When is J.R. going to get his? It seemed like a good idea to explore. We never really considered killing him, but we talked about several ways in which near death could occur and make sense. The shooting was also a way to tie up plot threads. We established a motive in each of the plot lines and the public went wild."

LARRY HAGMAN:

"CBS made a last-minute request for 4 (real number: 2) additional episodes, something practically unheard of so late in the year. But DALLAS was the 6th-higest-rated show. The network wanted to keep up the momentum and take advantage of more advertising income. Mr. KATZMAN and his writing staff plotted out the new shows, and as the story goes, when they began discussing the cliffhanger, now a part of the DALLAS formula, someone said: "Why don´t we just shoot the bastard?"
"The build-up was vintage J.R. Besides nearly losing the EWING fortune and cheating family and friends with bogus Asian oil leases, he´d driven BOBBY from SOUTHFORK, humiliated PAMELA, planned to send SUE ELLEN back to the nuthouse (upon discovering this she quietly slipped a pearl-handed pistol into her purse), and accused her ex-mistress and sister-in-law, KRISTIN, of prostitution (after which she hissed "I´ll kill him”).
"In other words, J.R. had been very busy. Yet in the final episode, J.R. ended up very much alone, collapsed on the floor of his office after being shot by an unseen assailant. That show aired on March 21, 1980. I watched at home, as I did every episode. By morning, though, it was clear this one wasn´t like any of the others. DALLAS had been seen by 50 million people in the US, more than any show except the Super Bowl. DALLAS finished number one in the Ratings for the first time.
"Total viewership was estimated at 300 million people in 57 countries around the world. It was a phenomenon, bigger than anyone ever imagined. Ronald Reagan was campaigning against Jimmy Carter, American hostages were being held hostages in Iran, Polish shipyard workers were on strike, and all anyone wanted to know was: Who shot J.R.? (...) A newspaper syndicate with papers in London, South Africa and Holland offered me a quarter million dollar if I´d reveal it to them exclusively. For a moment I considered telling them the wrong information and then saying I was tricked by the producers, but I decided not to be so like J.R. in real life. Everybody asked me. In truth, (...) none of us did (know) until we finally filmed the episode.
"Actually, I didn´t even know then. KATZMAN kept everyone in the dark by handing out scripts with key pages missing and filming J.R. being shot by practically everyone on the set (...). He jokingly suggested that after editing the show he´d lock everyone in a motel until it aired.(...)
“Fans of the show say the same thing about the show that aired on November 21, 1980. They say they´ll always remember where they were the night they found out who shot J.R. That Friday´s show drew more viewers than any other show in TV history, a 53.3 rating, or an estimated 83 million people – more than had voted in the presidential election 3 weeks earlier and a record that stood until the final episode of M*A*S*H in 1983. The final tally worldwide was 380 million! People have asked how that made me feel, being at the center of all that, but the numbers are so huge I never completely comprehended them – and never will. I simply enjoyed it.
"I´d sign autographs for anyone who asked, provided they told me a poem, a prayer, or a song in return. A lot of people balked at this, but I always thought that if I gave my signature away people didn´t place any value on it. But it they had to work for it, and essentially pay for it, they got an experience they never would´ve gotten if I´d signed and we´d never interacted. Both of us walked away with something memorable."

LINDA GRAY:

"The nightmares my character had in this episode, I had them too in real life. I think it was a terrible time for all the DALLAS cast. We were obsessed with the plot of the upcoming scripts, which the writers provided us drop by drop.”

“We would get money bribes and foreign countries were calling LARRY and offering him huge amounts of money. Of course we knew, but we couldn´t say.(...) We knew it because we filmed it.(...) I did it in voice over. I went from the set where we shot the series to where they did the sound. I walked in with 2 armed guards and did the voice over where I said: "KRISTIN, YOU SHOT J.R." I had already done it before the hiatus.”


MARY CROSBY:

"I got an anonymous 100.000 dollars offer, just for revealing who had shot J.R. Of course nobody knew, but they didn´t believe us when said so. Anyway I didn´t need the money, and if I had to, I´d not have told. "My career was deeply cast-typed and it was very hard for me to play another role but the woman who had launched me to fame. 2 years after, I could get out of that. I didn´t identify myself with KRISTIN nor like to be an object woman, but somehow, I eventually got fond of her. Anyway I didn´t want to get cast-typed in that kind of parts and hoped not to repeat the experience."

JARED MARTIN:

"My agent called me and said that I wouldn´t believe it, but I was on the DAILY MIRROR front page, one of the biggest London newspapers. Everybody thought that I had shot J.R., I didn´t know what that Who Shot J.R. stuff was about and she said that there was a big stir about who had shot him. That seemed to be more important than anything else."

FERN FITZGERALD:

“Like every other “suspect”, I filmed a segment that pointed the finger at me. In my segment, the police led me off in handcuffs. (...) was hoping I hadn´t “done it”, because I thought they´d lock me up, throw away the key and I´d be off the show.”


THE MAKING:

"6 endings were filmed: he was shot by his father, his mother, BOBBY, SUE ELLEN...Bang, bang! (even LUCY: "I shot him 4 times and called him “schmuck”, then I thought that, if they let me to call him that, my version wasn´t going to be chosen", CHARLENE TILTON stated). And nobody knew who had shot him.

The scene of SUE ELLEN´s visiting KRISTIN was filmed from 3 different points of view: on "No More Mr. Nice Guy" (I), KRISTIN explains her version: her sister picks up the glass with her left hand as she holds the pistol (but SUE ELLEN is not left-handed); at the same time, J.R.´s wife confesses post-hypnosis (episode "Who Done It?") that she took the glass with her right hand (though it is kept from us what became of the gun, since she cannot remember it, thus a close shot is used).

Eventually, at the final version, it is revealed what really happened: SUE ELLEN uses her right hand after laying her pistol near her sister...
“When it was aired, it had a spectacular audience: 850 millions all over the world. Previously, papers from LONDON, L´HAYE and SOUTH AFRICA offered me 250.000 $ for revealing who shot. I didn´t know but I confess that I considered the offer. After all, that´s the kind of lousy scheme that J.R. would have done...". (LARRY HAGMAN during his visit to Barcelona in 1999).

EPILOGUE
MARY CROSBY: “Looking back on it, I was just very grateful for what had happened and for the fact that I was the one who had shot him. (…) It made me the answer to a trivia question. (If) KRISTIN were to continue, there would be nowhere for her to go. It´s good for me, because I don´t want to get pegged as that kind of character for the rest of my life. (...) (My) part was up. They need new people. I loved DALLAS, the people on it were wonderful and LARRY was such fun and it was a home for me. So, I was sad to be leaving. But at the same time, I was in a strange and unique position to be the girl who shot J.R., and I was both terrified and excited to see where it would lead. It was bittersweet. But if I had my druthers, I would have hung out on DALLAS for a long time because it was a terrific experience for me.”

Sources: HELLO DARLIN´, ULTIMATE DALLAS, LA VANGUARDIA, COMPLETE BOOK OF "DALLAS", TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY and 25 YEARS OF "DALLAS".

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