The Big ’80s Hairdos Of Dallas Remained Unruffled...

Stetson-hatted, bourbon-swilling oil baron JR Ewing was the baddy we loved to hate in Dallas. Oh, how we longed for his comeuppance! And back in 1980 we were finally rewarded with That Episode when he was stopped in his tracks by a mystery, gun-toting assailant. It was a defining moment in TV history and set a trend for end-of-season cliffhangers that continues in dramas today.

But oh, the torture of those months before the Big

Reveal of the culprit from a list of... well, pretty much any character on the cast list. Would it be his long-suffering, lip-quivering, alcoholic wife Sue Ellen? “Poison Dwarf” Lucy, perfect Pam, perpetual foe Cliff Barnes? Even “Ma”, the wholesome, dependable Miss Ellie and saintly brother “Bah-bee” could not be eliminated from the line-up. After all, anything was possible in a show where a morning www.myweekly.co.uk shower could wipe out the plot lines of an entire season! Elvis’s former wife could pop up as a romantic interest and the big ’80s hairdos of the Ewing females would still remain unruffled – even after gamely enduring family breakfasts in the force 9 gales blowing across Southfork’s patio each morning.

Then finally, after eight long months of speculation, came the Big Reveal. Film reel canisters containing the crucial episode were dispatched from Los Angeles to Heathrow Airport under armed guard and at last we tuned in – 21.5 million of us in the UK alone – to find that JR’s spurned lover Kristen was the perpetrator of the crime.

“All of my life people have thought of me as Bing Crosby’s daughter,” said actress Mary Crosby at the time. “Now they’ll remember me as the person who shot JR.”