Arts & Entertainment
Sue Ellen redux
‘Dallas’ actress on her former co-stars, life after Larry and the hit show’s gay following
Linda Gray as Sue Ellen on ‘Dallas.’ Gray says it’s been a joy to return to the show 20 years later. (Photo courtesy TNT)
“Dallas,” the reboot of the classic 1978-1991 nighttime soap, returns for its third season Monday night on TNT and promises plenty of fresh backstabbing and intrigue.
John Ross (Josh Henderson) is working to live up to his father’s reputation, Christopher (Jesse Metcalfe) is reeling from a failed engagement and Elena (Jordana Brewster) is consumed with finding the justice that eluded her brother Drew (Kuno Becker) and mother Carmen (Marlene Forte).
It’s a pivotal turning point for the show — this will be its first full season without J.R. as actor Larry Hagman died in November 2012. He was in seven of season two’s 15 episodes and his character’s death was a major storyline last year.
Linda Gray, whose iconic character Sue Ellen has been willing to help her son any way she can on the new show, caught up with the Blade during a break in filming in Dallas two weeks ago, where it was snowing.
WASHINGTON BLADE: Snow is somewhat unusual but not unheard of for Dallas, right?
LINDA GRAY: I know. I’m just in heaven. It’s beautiful.
BLADE: You live in Los Angeles?
GRAY: Yes. I’m in Dallas six months, then L.A. six months. That’s a nice combination.
BLADE: I understand more of the show is filmed on location than was true for the old “Dallas,” right?
GRAY: Yes. We used to come here in the ‘80s for two months and work six days a week, then we went home and did eight-and-a-half months in L.A. So here we do 15 shows and we live here which is really kind of nice. At first we were like, “Oh, we have to move to Dallas?” but it’s quite amazing because then we get to show the audience all the greatness of Dallas. It’s changed so much since the ‘80s.
BLADE: How aware have you been of the show’s gay following? Do you sense it’s any different now than it was on the old show?
GRAY: I’m very aware it has a gay following and I’m beyond thrilled. I have so many, many, many friends who are gay and I adore them. There’s a JR’s and a Sue Ellen’s here, gay bars.
BLADE: We have a JR.’s in D.C., too.
GRAY: Oh, do you really? It’s so fantastic to have the support and we’ve always had it and … it’s been great. We love you right back. Dallas itself has a huge gay community here and they’re very supportive as well.
BLADE: What similarities or differences do you see now in how the show is rebounding dramatically from Larry’s passing versus how the original series dealt with the death of Jim Davis (Ewing family patriarch Jock)? I know it’s not exactly the same thing, but both were huge losses to the shows just a few seasons in.
GRAY: The entire team has changed, the writers, everything has changed and it’s an evolution that is — well, I step back and I look at this 20-year hiatus and it’s very bizarre to come back and do it again, but in such a good way. So now I think the approach is kind of like we’re outsiders looking in and seeing how the Ewings have evolved. And now without Larry, that threw everybody a curve and those wonderful writers — I always applaud the writers because without them and their great brains and their minds that kind of go off in wonderful directions, there would be no show. They had last season already approved by the networks and when Larry passed, they had to scramble and again, I applaud them because they did a magical shuffling around to kind of piece this together and still be an interesting, entertaining show without the key, which was huge — J.R. Ewing and Larry Hagman, I mean you know that was a huge void for me personally and I’m sure for everybody in the audience, it’s huge. So I look at it as an observer and say, “Wow, what a great job they’ve done.” They have to handle everything as it comes, as we all do in life. You don’t expect this to happen, but it did and now what are you going to do with it? When Jim Davis died, the producers were great. They moved his dressing room right on the soundstage because just like Larry, he wanted to die doing what he loved. They didn’t say, “No, you’re going into hospice or something,” they moved his dressing room right on the soundstage so we would do a scene and come in and hang out with Jim. When you’re doing a series, you’re so bonded as a family. You step in there and you’re supportive and you send them love. I would say “Dallas” has been blessed with a little bit of fairy dust that has been scattered on us from day one. The cast was wonderful, the writers were great, et cetera, and now it’s happening again and since I was one of the originals, it’s amazing to see how similar it is.
BLADE: You worked with Barbara Bel Geddes (Miss Ellie) for many years. After she left before the last season, she never appeared in any final episode, TV movies, cast reunions or anything. What would she think of this new series? (Bel Geddes died in 2005.)
GRAY: She was a savvy, bawdy broad, is what I called her, and I would call it to her face. We were so close. I’d call her Mama, on and off camera. She was this crusty New England broad. She was feisty and fabulous and such a huge classy addition to the Ewing family. I really was so shocked when I knew she was doing a series because I thought Barbara Bel Geddes, you know she worked with Tennessee Williams and Alfred Hitchcock. She was so classy and so when I first walked into the room, I’ll never forget it. I saw Major Nelson — Larry Hagman. I saw Patrick Duffy — “Man From Atlantis.” And then I saw Barbara Bel Geddes and I thought, “What’s wrong with this picture? Is this a sitcom? What is this show?” Internally I started laughing because I thought what is this? … But I just watched this magical thing happen and, you know, the Ewings became bigger than life. So for me it was great to work with her. She was astounding, she was quiet, she would make great funny little remarks during the rehearsals and then when you had a scene with her, man, you better be on your toes. You better bring your A game because she could bury you with a look. She was to me the same caliber as my two favorites — Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. There was no nonsense with her. It was just, “I’m here to work, I know what I’m doing, I’m a professional, I’m Broadway trained, I’m theater trained, I’ve worked with the best so don’t mess around with me.”
The cast of ‘Dallas.’ The reboot of the classic series returns Monday night. (Photo courtesy TNT)
BLADE: But what would her reaction be to this new series?
GRAY: I think she’d probably sit down with a glass of Scotch in her condominium and probably just laugh her ass off. She’d probably roll her eyes, going “How are we back again” and “Look at that younger generation.” But she would be a hoot. I think she would love the new show, love the kids, complain about everything — she loved to complain. She’d complain it was too hot, or, “What the hell are we doing, it’s snowing today,” or “What am I doing in Dallas,” blah blah blah blah blah. Yet the bottom line, she would love it.
BLADE: Victoria Principal has been a little different — she’s said she’s against reviving Pam in any kind of dramatic way, yet has joined up a few times in a non-dramatic capacity like the Vanity Fair photo (1995) and the 2004 reunion special. Over the years do you feel the rest of the cast has respected her wishes not to revive Pam or do you think there’s been some arm twisting to have her join in more often?
GRAY: I think we all respect her. I don’t think she wanted to come back and I don’t even know if the producers went after her or tried really pursuing her, I really don’t know. When you’re asked to come back, your gears are in different motion. You’re in forward motion. You’re thinking, “OK, gotta get to Dallas,” and you don’t really say, “Why isn’t so-and-so here?” For each person, it’s their choice and her choice was not to be in it so you respect everybody’s choice. We don’t see her very often. She was never kind of with us, you know, she was never — Larry, Patrick (Duffy) and I were very close and I was very close with Barbara and she just chose not to be as inclusive. I don’t mean that to — she just didn’t hang out with us.
BLADE: Any chance we might be seeing more of Lucy (Charlene Tilton)?
GRAY: Those are great questions but I don’t know the answers. The producers and writers, they write the scripts and if Lucy comes back, great, Ray Krebbs comes back, Steve (Kanaly) it’s always great to see him and it’s always fun to see them all. I do see Charlene in Los Angeles. She lives near my children. You know, it’s this great family, but since they’ve added all the young new people, it’s crowded. How many people can you bring back? It is fun for the audience when you see Charlene (Lucy), Steve (Ray Krebbs) and Kenny (Cliff Barnes), but it’s more a question for the producers.
BLADE: Larry was so anti-smoking yet Barbara smoked a lot. Did they ever clash over that on set?
GRAY: No, she would just tell him to get lost or, you know, just dismiss him. I think she smoked more in private. I never saw her smoke on the set.
BLADE: Now that it’s so many years later, do you feel the dream season was a good idea? People seem divided on whether it was clever or a jump-the-shark moment.
GRAY: Well, I don’t think people know all the dealings of how it really came about. Larry called Patrick and said, “I want you back.” He felt J.R. needed that brother, the good guy-bad guy kind of thing. I remember he called Patrick and Patrick knew when he got that phone call, what Larry was going to propose. He knew that intuitively. So he went over to his house in Malibu and they had a glass of Champagne and they may have gotten in the Jacuzzi, I don’t really know what happened there, but he talked Patrick into coming back so it was up to the producers to bring Patrick back and that was not an easy task to come up with. You know up front, no matter what they did, they would be criticized. … That was one of the things about “Dallas” that was exciting was that people would talk about it the next day. Did you like this? Look at Sue Ellen’s hair. Did you hate this? What about Bobby? What about J.R. drinking? Whatever. He’d call it water cooler chat. Whether you liked it or not, we knew it was going to cause chaos. So they had the idea for him to do the fake Irish Spring soap commercial where they edited out everything but him saying, “Good morning.” … A lot of people hated it and just stopped watching the show, they said it was ridiculous. A lot of people thought it was funny. A lot of people went, “Wow, that was a great dream sequence.” So no matter how you felt, good, bad or indifferent, they needed him back and they accomplished that.
BLADE: You look great but still look like yourself. What’s your skin care regimen?
GRAY: You’re sweet, thanks. When my peers no longer look like themselves, it scares me. There’s not a secret, I swear. I have a great skin care regimen. I never sleep with makeup on, I drink a lot of water. Hydration is huge. I eat great. I cook most of my own meals. A lot of green stuff — we’re from California, remember. And that’s it. You know, a good attitude goes a long way. And I exercise. I do all the things we’re supposed to do. Sometimes I don’t want to. I don’t want to get up early and go to the gym, but I do. I think complexion is more important than pulling and cutting your face. I’d rather have a good glowy complexion, so I use good skin care products and I use them twice a day. It’s like brushing your teeth. There’s no big secret.
BLADE: Could you ever imagine a gay wedding at Southfork?
GRAY: Sure! Why not?
Sports
2 former NBA players launch cheap anti-trans stunt to exploit WNBA rules
Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White are attempting to extend their finished sports careers through vague gender eligibility policy in the WNBA.
As transgender sports policy continues to make headlines, two former NBA players are attempting to use vague WNBA wording on players’ gender identity to extend their finished professional sports careers.
Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, two male former professional basketball players who have aligned themselves with the ‘far-right’ political spectrum, have announced that they plan to self-identify as transgender in order to meet the requirements to declare themselves eligible for the WNBA draft.
Freedom last played for the NBA in 2022, while White played his last professional game in 2018.
Both players have explicitly stated that this choice is an attempt to exploit the policy currently in place in the WNBA — one that assumes those who say they identify as transgender women are women — unlike what these two have done.
The WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement states that “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA,” but it does not include more specific language about gender identity or sex assigned at birth, according to The Athletic, The New York Times’s sports publication.
Neither Freedom nor White has previously made any statements about being trans.
“If simply declaring who you are is all that’s required, then I meet every single requirement necessary to compete in the WNBA,” Freedom wrote on X. “Based on the current guidelines, I can and am officially declaring my eligibility for the upcoming WNBA draft in April 2027.”
Hours later, White made a similar statement to Fox News, emphasizing that this was solely an attempt to exploit the policy — an attempt at inclusion — and use it as a loophole to stay relevant in the sport he left in 2018.
“I’m transgender. I’m a woman. I identify as sometimes identifying as a woman for purpose of basketball, professional basketball, so I’ll be declaring for the WNBA draft in 2027 as well,“ White told Fox News. “I think I’d be unstoppable. But I’m a team-first guy. I’m a pass-first kind of player. I do the little things. I led my team in all five major stat categories at Iowa State University, so I do a little bit of everything. I’ll do whatever the coach needs me to do. I’ll do whatever the girls need me to do.”
White also said that he would be open to suing the WNBA if he were not allowed to be a part of the draft, while making transphobic comments about genitalia in the same breath.
“I think the WNBA could come out and make a definitive statement about guys with a pair of balls playing in the Women’s Association,“ White said, saying he doesn’t “want to be discriminated against.”
“I want fair treatment,” White continued while also using the opportunity to promote his run for the U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota. “I’m a young Black, hopefully United States Senator that would like a fair chance to participate as a sometimes-identifying-as-a-transgender-woman athlete.”
“We’re gonna have to have a huge legal battle about discrimination if I can’t play,” he added.
White has made multiple failed attempts to run for office as a Republican since leaving the NBA, with statements surrounding conspiracy theories and his support for Trump coming under fire.
He has faced court actions after falling behind on court-mandated child support payments and has faced family repercussions for his political activities.
White’s grandfather has distanced himself from White, stating: “There’s no way I can support my grandson supporting the GOP, and in essence, Trump.”
In response to Freedom’s X post and White’s announcement, the Women’s National Basketball Players’ Association, the players’ union for the WNBA, released a statement doubling down on its commitment to inclusivity in the sport.
“We embrace justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Those are the values that unite this Union and allow it to protect women’s sports while creating transformational change,” the statement said in a post on Instagram.
“Hate, abuse, and demonization of any person or group of people, including transgender people, only fuel fear, division, and harm. We will continue to have hard conversations,” the post continued. “But we will not be used as political pawns.”
The statement comes just days after WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert sent a memo to teams attempting to address ongoing discussions around transgender athletes in women’s basketball.
“I know many of you have received questions in recent weeks regarding transgender athlete participation in women’s basketball, and I expect this topic will continue to receive significant attention,” Engelbert wrote in the memo, which was sent Friday afternoon and published in the Associated Press. “I wanted to reach out to share how we are approaching these conversations at the league office and to thank those of you who have responded to questions from the media with thoughtfulness and professionalism.”
“We recognize that this is a complex and nuanced topic, and we will continue to have important conversations with all of you and the Players Association in the weeks and months ahead,” Engelbert said. “We also plan to convene additional discussions and offer listening sessions for any team leaders who would like to participate. Your perspectives and feedback are invaluable, and I appreciate those who have already reached out to share their thoughts.”
The memo, which does not clarify whether the league’s stance on gender eligibility will change or what the ongoing conversations have looked like, comes as political figures — particularly those on the right — continue to fuel debates over transgender participation in women’s sports across the country and across sports.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also commented on the ongoing eligibility meetings the WNBA is holding, using the issue to criticize transgender participation in women’s sports.
“WNBA meeting to decide whether 2+2=4 or 2+2=5,” Desantis wrote on X on Saturday.
Indiana Fever player Sophie Cunningham voiced support for barring transgender girls and women from girls’ and women’s sports. Cunningham’s comments sparked small rallies and protests in Seattle and Portland when the Fever were on the road last week.
Despite the loudest voices — and those being covered by non-LGBTQ outlets — highlighting negative takes on transgender inclusion on female sports teams, multiple WNBA members have voiced their support for transgender women participating in sports.
Seattle Storm center Stefanie Dolson and Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve have used their platforms to continue their vocal support for transgender women participating in sports.
“We need to protect trans kids,” Reeve said on Aug. 1. “To me, it’s a human rights issue. Every kid has a right to sports.”
A source familiar with the league told the Blade that the WNBA is not taking Freedom and White’s announcements seriously and is not entertaining what the source characterized as bad-faith efforts to demonize the transgender community. The source emphasized that there are no serious or immediate eligibility issues involving the two men and said their attempts to enter women’s sports do not represent an effort to protect women’s sports.
“The WNBA will not allow bad-faith publicity stunts designed to mock or demean others to dictate serious conversations about league policy,” the source told the Blade on Tuesday. “There are no immediate eligibility issues affecting the WNBA.”
Theater
Don’t miss summer productions at Clear Space in Rehoboth Beach
‘Cher Show,’ ‘Pretty Woman’ among season’s standouts
“The Cher Show” at Clear Space Theatre is wonderful. I am always amazed at the talent they attract for their summer series. Kudos to Wes Drummond, the artistic director of the theater. “The Cher Show” is written by Rick Elice. Compliments to the talented director, James FitzSimmons, who brought to life this production. His immensely talented cast includes Shannen Hofheimer as Star, Breanna Lemerise as Lady, Abby Lynne as Babe, and Anya Kay, as young Cher. Each is a pleasure to both watch and listen to. They command the stage. Then more kudos to the entire cast and ensemble. Also, the creative team, which includes among so many who make this show a hit, choreographer Shondelle Graulich; scenic designer, David Chappell; lighting designer Brendan Smith; costume designer Valerie Beardsley; and the entire orchestra led by conductor, Jerry Birl.
But the actor who I was looking forward to seeing in the production, was a young actor I had written about, and reviewed, when I saw him at Clear Space two years ago. In this production he is Sonny Bono, and he definitely didn’t disappoint.
Let me introduce Caetano de Sá. I have written about him before, but his resume is worth repeating. It says; Height: 5’7 ½, Eyes: Brown, Voice part: Tenor G2 – C5, Build: Athletic. All true. Then you add to this he speaks Brazilian Portuguese, is certified in stage combat by the Society of American Fight Directors, and is a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo. Then as his resume of roles confirms, he can act, sing, and dance with the best. He does a great job as Sonny and is fun to watch on stage. Here he displays his talents as a singer and actor, and they are as good as I remembered them when I first met Caetano while he was still in school in 2024, and was starring as Frankie Valli in “Jersey Boys,” at Clear Space. At the time he was a rising senior at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee BFA Musical Theater program. I interviewed him, and Harry Sperduto, who played Tommy Devotee, after seeing them in the show, and being amazed by their talent. Since that time, I have followed their careers. When I heard Caetano was coming back to Clear Space for the summer, I reached out, and he agreed to sit down and chat, which we did. I knew Clear Space Theatre was planning a busy summer season. Their lineup of shows included “The Cher Show,” “Mean Girls,” and “Pretty Woman.” They always have talented casts, including the many college students who are getting their first chance to shine, which was the case for Caetano in 2024. Now he is back as a graduate, with more experience under his belt, a little more established. This season he was going to play Sonny in their production of “The Cher Show,” Martin/Coach Carr, in “Mean Girls,” and Mr. Hollister in “Pretty Woman,” and being a part of the ensemble. He told me he really enjoys being at Clear Space, and that his castmates are all talented. He is a lot more experienced than when he was here before, having performed in productions at the Prairie Repertory Theatre, the Emerald Coast Theatre Company, Firehouse Center for the Arts, and the Sullivan Rep, among others. In productions as diverse as “Oklahoma!,” “Mystic Pizza,” “Hairspray,” and “Rock of Ages.” He now lives in New York City and clearly New York is the perfect place for an aspiring actor. He has an agent at Bramante Artists, who is getting him gigs, like the one he had at 54 Below and even a TV commercial for AFLAC.
“The Cher Show” is the second show I have seen at Clear Space this summer. After our chat I got one of the last tickets available that evening for “Pretty Woman.” In that production he has a smaller role, and is part of the incredibly talented ensemble. It is also an entertaining show and its very talented stars, Abby McDonough as Vivian, and Jaiden Leo Riley as Edward, are a pleasure to watch. Kudos to the talented director, Ashley Williams, and the entire creative team.
For anyone living at the beach, or coming for a visit, I urge you to plan a night at Clear Space. You won’t regret it. But know tickets for all the shows, and Sunday evening cabaret nights, sell out fast. So, I suggest you see what’s available online and buy yours today.
The 2026 World Pride March was held on Saturday, Aug. 8 in Amsterdam. Tens of thousands of participants marched from Martin Luther Kingpark to the grounds of the Pride Village at Museumplein.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
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