‘Dallas’ star Linda Gray turns to helping others after being shook to her ‘core’ decades after hit show’s end
“Dallas” star Linda Gray stepped out last week to help raise funds to fight cancer, a cause that has become close to her heart.
Gray serves as a co-chair, along with Alan Stewart, for the Farrah Fawcett Foundation, which held its third annual Farrah Fawcett Foundation Tex-Mex Fiesta in Dallas.
The 84-year-old first became involved in the organization after winning their Angel Award at the first Tex-Mex Fiesta in 2022, not long after she lost her son, Jeff, to leukemia in 2020.
Linda Gray attended the Farrah Fawcett Foundation Tex-Mex Fiesta on Oct. 24, 2024, in Dallas. (Rick Kern/Getty Images for Farrah Fawcett Foundation)
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“A celebration of my son Jeff’s life. He was the kindest, funniest, sweetest human being….. he brought the world such love and was loved by everyone! May his journey be a magical one,” she wrote in the caption for a series of photos shared on Instagram in November 2020.
In a second post, close to Thanksgiving, she shared a photo of her hugging Jeff as he prepared to carve a turkey.
“I have so much to be thankful for. Being Jeff’s Mother was an honor. I have such sweet memories of cooking with him. He always carved the Turkey and made his special cranberry sauce,” she wrote.
Jeff was one of two children Gray shared with ex-husband Ed Thrasher. They also have a daughter, Kehly Sloane, an actress who appeared on “Dallas” playing Gray’s secretary.
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Speaking at this year’s Tex-Mex Fiesta, Gray recalled the loss of her son “just shook me to my core,” adding, “This disease has got to be stopped,” per Culture Map Dallas.
Gray and Fawcett had been long time friends until the “Charlie’s Angels” star died in 2009 from anal cancer.
Gray lost her son to leukemia in 2020 and later became involved in the Farrah Fawcett Foundation, accepting their Angel Award at the 2022 Tex-Mex Fiesta. (Rick Kern/Getty Images for Farrah Fawcett Foundation)
When the event kicked off in 2022, Stewart said holding it in Texas would “have meant so much to her,” per the Dallas Morning News.
Though born in Santa Monica, California, Gray became synonymous with Texas thanks to her role on “Dallas.”
Alana Stewart and Gray served as co-chairs this year for the Farrah Fawcett Foundation Tex-Mex Fiesta fundraiser. (Rick Kern/Getty Images for Farrah Fawcett Foundation)
She starred as Sue Ellen Ewing, the long-suffering wife of oil businessman J.R. Ewing, played by Larry Hagman.
Gray earned an Emmy nomination as well as two Golden Globe nominations for her work on the show, which ran from 1978 to 1991. She reprised her role in several TV movie spin-offs of the series throughout the ’90s and the revival, which ran from 2012 to 2014, when Hagman died.
Gray, far right, is shown with “Dallas” cast members, from left, Steve Kanaly, Patrick Duffy, Victoria Principal, Barbara Bel Geddes, Jim Davis, Larry Hagman, and Charlene Tilton. (CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images)
“I think that ‘Dallas’ was like daytime soaps that were very popular, and ‘Dallas’ came into play, and it was gigantic, and it filled that same need that people love to have a recurring story, suspense and something to look forward to,” Gray told People magazine in 2023.
“Because the show ran for so many years, the audience got to know the characters so genuinely, and they really cared for [them], and the characters all went through so much,” she continued. “And I think the fans really loved to relate to the stories that were bigger than life. I think that they were definitely bigger than life so they could live vicariously through those characters. ‘Dallas’ was so influential.”
Gray recalled that “Dallas” was “so influential.” (Maureen Donaldson/Getty Images)
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After “Dallas,” Gray continued working on television on series like “90210” and later joining the long-running British soap opera “Hollyoaks” from 2016 to 2017.
She also showcased her work on stage, notably in a West End production of “The Graduate,” which proved to be a full-circle moment for the actress, who revealed in 2013 that it is actually her leg on the famous poster for the 1967 movie, not the film’s star Anne Bancroft.
Gray revealed that her leg is the one featured on the poster for “The Graduate,” not the film’s star, Anne Bancroft. (Getty Images)
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In 2023, she joined forces with some fellow ’80s TV icons like Loni Anderson and Morgan Fairchild for the Lifetime movie “Ladies of the 80s: A Divas Christmas,” following five fictionalized actresses who starred in a fictional 1980s soap opera who reunite for their final drama-filled Christmas special
“The world was a different place then, and I think that’s interesting to look back. We worked a lot during the ‘80s, and I think it was so much fun for me to look back and go, ‘Wow, look at the world, look at the energy that was different back then.’ We were very positive back then. Everything just seemed yummier,” Gray told Fox News Digital at the time.
She added that hanging out with her co-stars, Anderson, Fairchild, Donna Mills and Nicolette Sheridan, was a “perfect” experience.
“You kind of hoped it would all blend, everybody would get along. And we did,” she said. “And we kept talking and interrupting and reminiscing and hugging. And then we had this magical director, well, woman, and she just kind of fell right into the rest of us. She was one of us and so everything flowed together. And that’s what was lovely about it for me was it was seamless. There was nothing that felt out of whack in any, any arena. It was perfect.”
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Gray is also looking to reunite with her “Dallas” co-star Patrick Duffy for a TV movie that would play around with the show’s original location for Christmas, per Variety.
Per the outlet, Gray and executive producer Larry Thompson, who also worked with her on “Ladies of the 80s,” are pitching an idea that would feature Gray and Duffy as poltergeists haunting Southfork Ranch, where “Dallas” was filmed, and which is still operating as a filming and tourist location to this day.
The duo would be playing all new characters, unrelated to the original series, who haunt the location and become annoyed by a pop star using the estate to film a Christmas music video. In keeping with it being a holiday rom-com, they’d also conspire to stop her from falling in love with the handsome caretaker.
Gray is producing a film with “Dallas” co-star Patrick Duffy that would take place where the show was filmed. (Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)
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“I feel very blessed,” Gray told Woman’s World last year. “I like to do a 45-minute gratitude walk. … I realize I have to be grateful for every body part, every tree I see, the sky, the clouds. … I know it sounds lightweight, but I don’t care.”
