Vale: Ken Kercheval

US actor Ken Kercheval, best known as J.R. Ewing’s arch-nemesis on Dallas, has died, aged 83.

He died on Sunday evening but the cause of death has not been reported.

Kercheval spent 14 seasons on Dallas as oil tycoon Cliff Barnes, brother of Pamela Ewing (Victoria Principal).

“From the very beginning, Cliff would always get defeated by J.R.,” he once said. “Finally, I went to [writer-producer] Leonard Katzman and said, ‘I’m not sure exactly how to play this, because for this guy to keep coming back again and again, he’d have to have gotten a lobotomy.’

“I thought as an actor, ‘How am I going to have an audience believe that this guy is not some imbecile who keeps coming back, [only] to get whipped? I thought the only way is to add some humour to it, just to say, ‘Dust yourself off, get up and start all over again.'”

He would later direct episodes and return for the 2012 reboot.

Other credits included The Seven-Ups, Pretty Poison, Rabbit Run, Network, F.I.S.T., Naked City, The Defenders, Search for Tomorrow, Kojak, The New Mike Hammer, Starsky & Hutch, L.A. Law, Crossing Jordan, Diagnosis: Murder and ER.

Source: Hollywood Reporter