Dallas star shares rare insight into relationship with partner in personal interview

Lovebirds Patrick Duffy and Linda Purl have been dating for five years, and are still firmly in the honeymoon phase.

The acting legends opened up about their rare connection in a candid interview with the Daily Mail, with the Dallas star revealing how he keeps their love alive through adorable romantic gestures.

Love language

“It sounds so cliché, but our life is very romantic, everything that we do has that overtone. It’s an I-love-you-relationship,” Patrick told the outlet.

“So if she’s working and I’m not there, yes, I send flowers to the dressing room. If we’re working together, I guess it’s arrogance, but I consider each of us our own flowers for each other.”

The couple worked together on The Bold and the Beautiful between 2022 and 2023, and are now starring in a new adventure film, Hollywood Grit.

“It was pretty odd the first time we were working together,” Linda shared. “We finished a scene and I felt a pat on my derriere…on set! Then I hear ‘Nice job honey.'”

“I was like, huh? Oh! Okay!” she laughed.

Back to the beginning

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Their love story is one for the books. After being acquaintances for forty years, sparks flew when Patrick, 76, and Linda, 69, bumped into each other in New York.

When the pandemic hit shortly after their meeting, the pair opted to stay in touch and began to call each other on Zoom, chatting for hours about their interests.

“We were finding lots of common threads. Patrick would read a poem that he wrote, and then we’d listen to some music. And so it just started to deepen,” the Happy Days star explained.

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Patrick then embarked on a 20-hour road trip to see her, a move which Linda said was “very courageous”.

“To step out of the car and it’s just the two of us in a driveway staring at each other,” Patrick recalled. “It was like, ‘Okay, now what?’ And I very meekly said, ‘May I kiss you?’ And then that was it. The deal was sealed.”

Twilight years

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Patrick, who rose to fame as the ever-charming Bobby Ewing on Dallas, had decided to take the reins of his love life after entering his 70s.

He shared that he had been “open to new ideas, new people, everything,” adding that when Linda “came into my orbit, it was a different feeling”.

“I realized that just being comfortable wasn’t enough. Just being satisfied was not enough,” he continued. “That there was a happiness factor that I wasn’t experiencing that I got every night on a two-hour Zoom. And it had to be fleshed out.”

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His adoring partner, Linda, got her start on Happy Days as Fonzie’s girlfriend, Ashley Pfister. She went on to have an incredible Hollywood career with roles in Matlock, The Office, and Robin’s Hoods.

As for whether the star couple are looking to retire, Patrick explained that they were happy to take whatever opportunities came their way.

“We don’t consider retiring, but what we are are realists,” he said. “We don’t work with the consistency that we did for the first 50 years of our career. And that’s okay. We get these moments…Hollywood Grit comes along…and it is an absolute treasure.”