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Show by Joey Sasso CONFIDENTIAL REPORT: Patrick Duffy, the fine young actor who plays Bobby Ewing on CBS' big hit, 'Dallas,' confesses that he is the reason why J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) was shot as last season wound down. Now, please don't misinterpret this confession. Duffy is NOT saying that Bobby shot his brother, only that the reason the producers and writers of the show contrived the whole shooting sequence is because of something Duffy said and did. To set the stage: Patrick Duffy had begun to feel that the character he was playing, Bobby Ewing, was too one-dimensional, too nice, had a tendency to being too goody-goody "there was no real conflict in him." Duffy enjoyed playing the role because of its security, its monetary rewards, the fame and attention it had brought him. But he also felt it would even be more enjoyable if the part could be a little more exciting, if Bobby Ewing had another side to his character. "So I went in to see Leonard Katzman," Duffy says. Katzman is the producer of the show. "And when I told him my problem, Leonard said he had sort of been expecting my visit." The upshot of that conversation was Katzman's promise to show that Bobby Ewing wasn't all marshmallow and caramel, that he was human and did indeed have his faults. Katzman and his writers decided that Bobby had to be in charge of the Ewing empire for a while. Then they could show how power corrupts and how Bobby Ewing becomes corrupted. Thus, the shot that put J.R. out of action. For the first half of this coming television season, J.R. will be battling back to health and, while he does that, Bobby will be the Ewing in charge. He will fall prey to corruption, Duffy says, but eventually see the error of his ways and come back to his goody-good senses. Duffy is amused by the furor that shot has caused. CONSUMER NEWS WIRE: Alison Arngrlm, better known as nasty Nellie Oleson on the top-rated 'Little House on the Prairie,' plays her part too well. In fact, she's so good as the spiteful and sassy Nellie that total strangers scold her on the street. "Some people get very upset and once a little kid came up and kicked me in the rear end," she told me. "Another time I was in a supermarket with Melissa Gilbert, who plays Laura Ingalls on the show. A bunch of people recognized her right away, but not me. Then, when they found out I was Nellie, they all backed away, saying how mean I was." But one woman really believed that Alison was as mean as Nellie, and delighted in her devilishness. "She came up to me in a restroom and said, 'Oh you're vile, you're evil, you're horrible, and I love you.' " TV CLOSEUP: Baltimore Orioles star pitcher Jim Palmer is receiving mash notes from women all over the country and is finding that being the Jockey briefs pinup boy is having an effect on women he didn't fully anticipate. Posters of Palmer posing in briefs for Jockey International are being tacked up all over the country. Palmer says he's happy so many women are showing an interest in baseball . . . Lonl Anderson's sexy image masks the pain of three terrible car crashes and the constant torment of unsightly skin rashes. "I'm lucky to be alive," says loni, the star along with Arnold Schwarzenegger of a new movie about sex goddess Jayne Mansfield, who died tragically in an auto accident in 1967. "I've been in three terrible auto accidents and they've left me with permanent injuries." Because of her bad luck, TV's 'WKRP In Cincinnati' .star has regular physical therapy, and she can't play strenuous sports like tennis. Instead her hobby is making puppets. |