Patrick Duffy is an American actor, best known for his role on the CBS primetime soap opera
Dallas, where he played Bobby Ewing from 1978 to 1985 and from 1986 to 1991.
Duffy returned to reprise his role as Bobby in a continuation of Dallas, with aired on
TNT from 2012 to 2014.
He is also well known for his role on the ABC sitcom Step by Step as Frank Lambert,
from 1991 to 1998, and for his role as Stephen Logan on the CBS daytime soap opera The Bold
and the Beautiful.
Duffy plays the lead character's father in the 2014 NBC sitcom Welcome to Sweden.
Early life Duffy was born in Townsend, Montana, the son
of tavern owners Marie and Terence Duffy.
During high school, Duffy was living in Everett, Washington and attended Cascade High School
there.
At Cascade, he participated in the Drama Club and the Pep Club, for which he was a Yell
King.
Academically, Duffy earned credentials in theater arts that entitled him to teach, graduating
from the University of Washington in 1971 with a degree in drama.
He ruptured both his vocal cords during his senior year of college, so he created the
position of actor-in-residence, where he worked as an interpreter for ballet, opera, and orchestra
companies in Washington.
He also taught mime and movement classes during this period.
Career
In 1976, Duffy landed the role of Mark Harris in the short-lived television series Man from
Atlantis.
Following the series' cancellation in early 1978, he got his big break in the role of
Bobby Ewing on the soap opera Dallas.
The show became a worldwide success.
Despite its success, Duffy opted to leave the series in 1985 with his character being
killed off onscreen.
However, with both the show and his career on the decline, he returned in 1986 in the
infamous shower scene that rendered the entire 1985–1986 season "just a dream".
Duffy then remained with the series until its cancellation in 1991.
He also appeared in several episodes of the spin-off series Knots Landing between 1979–82.
Throughout the 13-year run of Dallas, Duffy directed several episodes of the series.
Along with Dallas fame, Duffy has also tried his hand at singing, and in 1983, he had a
hit in Europe with "Together We're Strong", a duet with French female singer Mireille
Mathieu.
The single reached number 5 in The Netherlands in April 1983.
At the end of Dallas' run in 1991, Duffy began another television role, as Frank Lambert
on the family sitcom, Step by Step in which he co-starred with Suzanne Somers.
The series ran until 1998, and Duffy also directed numerous episodes.
Also in the 1990s, he appeared in two Dallas reunion television movies; J.R.
Returns and War of the Ewings, both of which he also co-produced.
He has reunited on several occasions with many of his Dallas co-stars both onscreen
and off, most notably for the non-fiction television special Dallas Reunion: Return
to Southfork in 2004.
Duffy later continued to act in the occasional guest or voice acting appearance, including
the series Family Guy, as well as Justice League and Touched by an Angel.
Duffy starred in the television movies Falling in Love With the Girl Next Door and Desolation
Canyon.
In 2006, he began a recurring role on the daytime soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful
as Stephen Logan.
From April to July 2008, he hosted Bingo America, a partially interactive game show on GSN.
Duffy reprised his role as Bobby Ewing in TNT's remake of Dallas.
The series aired from 2012 to 2014.
Personal life Duffy married Carlyn Rosser, ten years his
senior, in a Nichiren Buddhist ceremony on February 15, 1974.
They live near Eagle Point, Oregon, with their sons Padraic Terence Duffy and Conor Frederick
Duffy.
They also have four grandchildren.
Duffy was an avid collector of antique dolls and children's books.
Though a former Catholic and named after St. Patrick because he was born on March 17, he
converted to Nichiren Buddhism and began chanting Nam(u) Myōhō Renge Kyō at the approximate
time of his earliest encounters with his wife, who was then a ballet dancer with the First
Chamber Dance Company of New York.
He and his family are long-time active members of the American Nichiren Buddhist lay organization
SGI-USA.
On November 18, 1986, Duffy's parents were murdered by two young men, Kenneth Miller
and Sean Wentz, during an armed robbery of the Boulder, Montana bar his parents owned.
Wentz and Miller, who were teenagers at the time, were convicted of the murders and sentenced
to 75 years in prison.
In 2001, Miller appeared before the Montana Parole board after Sean Wentz recanted his
original story, admitting that he was the sole gunman.
Miller was denied clemency in 2001 but was released on parole in December 2007.
Duffy's nephew is Major League Baseball pitcher Barry Zito.
According to longtime fan and future crewmember, Andrea Cantrell, she was asked to create a
photo album of the Ewing Family, in 2012, who was having difficulty finding as many
appropriate pictures as she could, though many of the new cast members could only provide
recent snaps, and her efforts were further hampered because the image of two original
Dallas stars, late actors Jim Davis and Barbara Bel Geddes, are controlled by the handlers
of their estate.
Then, after struggling, Duffy came to the rescue, who asked his wife to send a box of
pictures to Cantrell.
All the pictures Duffy's real-life family were taken, decades ago, as well as a baby
picture of Patrick, himself.
His real-life mother also bore a slight resemblance to Bel Geddes, whose character made a photo
of her holding baby Patrick, exactly what Cantrell needed.
His real-life late parents made a cameo on the revised Dallas series.
Filmography References
External links Patrick Duffy at the Internet Movie Database