Kercheval was born in Wolcottville, Indiana, to Christine (nee Rieber), a nurse, and John, a doctor. No matter how he gets Cliff down, he can be assured that he’ll turn round and Cliff will be there.” Nevertheless, said Kercheval, when the programme was at its height: “Cliff Barnes is the only one that JR keeps having to worry about. A running joke was his penchant for Chinese takeaways. Kercheval initially modelled the character of Cliff on the US senator Robert Kennedy, but he and the writers quickly evolved him into “Calamity” Cliff, a bumbling loser out of his comfort zone in the cut-throat oil business. Kercheval reprised the role in the 2012-14 revival of the Dallas series, with the feuding continuing as the Ewings took control of his new business.
Ironically, when the soap returned for the one-off 1996 TV movie Dallas: JR Returns, he decided to sell the business to Bobby and Sue Ellen. All were thwarted until the soap’s final run, when Cliff finally gained control of the business. This led to bitter family feuds, Cliff’s affair with JR’s wife, Sue Ellen (Linda Gray), and his constant attempts to take over Ewing Oil. The brother-in-law of Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) through the marriage of his sister Pam (Victoria Principal), Cliff believed he and his father, Digger (played successively by David Wayne, Keenan Wynn and David Marshall Grant), had been cheated out of an oil fortune by the Ewings. The 1980 “Who Shot JR?” episode was watched by 360 million viewers in almost 60 countries. He and Larry Hagman, who played “nasty” JR, were the only two actors to appear throughout the glossy American soap’s original 13-year, 14-series run from 1978 until 1991. The actor Ken Kercheval, who has died aged 83, found worldwide fame as Cliff Barnes, who was constantly outwitted by his arch-enemy, JR Ewing, in the TV series Dallas.
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