Sue Ellen Ewing (
Née Shepard; later
Lockwood) is a character on the popular American television series
Dallas, played by
Linda Gray from 1978 to 1989. Sue Ellen was the long-suffering two-time wife of the nefarious
J. R. Ewing.
Sue Ellen was the eldest of two daughters born and raised in Dallas. Shortly after her younger sister Kristin was born, her alcoholic father deserted the family and died shortly thereafter. Her mother, with a modest income of her own, never remarried and instead brought up her two daughters to attain wealth and position. Sue Ellen became a straight A student in high school with exceptional beauty and social skills. She went on to the University of Texas where her freshman year she was invited to join every social sorority, pledging one and also making varsity cheerleader. Later, at her mother’s urging, she went out for the ultimate beauty prize: representing Texas at the Miss America pageant.
When Sue Ellen won the title of Miss Texas 1967, she met her future husband J.R., who was a judge for the pageant. After a courtship, they were married on February 15, 1970, but after several years, their marriage deteriorated, due in large part to J.R.’s numerous extramarital affairs and his disinterest in her.
In 1979, a lonely Sue Ellen began an affair with J.R.’s nemesis Cliff Barnes. Shortly thereafter, Sue Ellen found herself pregnant and believed that Cliff was the father because she and J.R. had been married for years without conceiving and by this point, they barely had marital relations.
Sue Ellen believed she loved Cliff, but was unable to leave J.R. To console herself, she started drinking heavily during her pregnancy. Worried about the safety of her unborn child, J.R. had Sue Ellen committed to a sanitarium in 1979 to gain sobriety. However, Sue Ellen managed to continue drinking and escaped the sanitarium drunk and crashed a car. While in the hospital, she gave birth to a son, John Ross Ewing III.
After her son’s birth, Sue Ellen became severely depressed and showed no interest in the child. She then began an affair with rodeo cowboy Dusty Farlow and entered into psychiatric treatment. Eventually, she gained the strength to connect with her child. After Cliff sued for paternity of the baby, tests revealed that J.R. was in fact the actual biological father. Sue Ellen, meanwhile, made plans to leave J.R. for Dusty, however, Dusty was reportedly killed in a plane crash and this news sent Sue Ellen back to the bottle.
In 1981, Sue Ellen learned that Dusty was in fact alive, but had been horribly crippled as a result of the plane crash. Nonetheless, Sue Ellen remained dedicated to her love for Dusty and left J.R.—taking their son with her to live at the Southern Cross Ranch, the home of Dusty’s father, Clayton Farlow. Sue Ellen divorced J.R. and gained custody of John Ross, but her relationship with Dusty ended when Dusty regained the use of his legs and decided to resume his life’s passion as a rodeo cowboy.
Sue Ellen then moved back to Dallas with her son and entered into another short-lived romance with J.R.’s enemy, Cliff Barnes. When J.R. got wind of this, he became jealous and courted Sue Ellen himself in an effort to win back custody of his son, and, in the process, obtain his voting shares in Ewing Oil. In 1982, J.R. and Sue Ellen remarried, but their happiness would be short-lived as J.R. quickly returned to his philandering ways and Sue Ellen caught him in bed with Holly Harwood. However, Sue Ellen decided to remain married to J.R., in name only, but moved out of his bedroom.
In 1983, Sue Ellen entered into an affair with college student, Peter Richards, who had been her son’s camp counselor. In 1984, Sue Ellen miscarried a child, but didn’t know if J.R. or Peter was the father. When J.R. learned of Sue Ellen’s affair, he arranged for Peter to be arrested on trumped-up drug charges and blackmailed him to leave Dallas for good.
In 1986, Sue Ellen went into business by buying a partnership interest in a lingerie company. She successfully lured J.R.’s latest mistress, Mandy Winger, away from J.R. by offering her a promising career as model and then as an actress. Sue Ellen and J.R. enjoyed a brief reconciliation, however, J.R.’s desire to regain Ewing Oil by having an affair with Kimberly Cryder destroyed what was left of their marriage.
Sue Ellen decided to leave J.R. for good, but he managed to take John Ross away and put him into hiding in a boarding school. Sue Ellen and her new lover, Nicholas Pearce, confronted J.R. at his penthouse and demanded he tell them where he hid John Ross. A scuffle broke out between J.R. and Nicholas resulting in Nicholas being thrown over the balcony and being killed. In response, Sue Ellen then shot J.R. three times; however, he lived and neither she nor J.R. were indicted for any crimes.
In 1988, Sue Ellen divorced J.R. for a second time. Deciding to get revenge on J.R., Sue Ellen decided to make a feature film expose on her life with J.R. with the help of screenwriter Don Lockwood. She and Don soon became romantically involved and, in 1989, Sue Ellen moved to London with Lockwood, but not before blackmailing J.R. by threatening to release her film expose which would destroy his reputation.
In 1991, J.R. learned that Sue Ellen and Don Lockwood had married. Sue Ellen did appear in the final episode of the series during J.R.’s dream in which she is a successful actress married to her former love, Nicholas Pearce.
Reunion movies
In 1996, when her marriage to Don was in trouble, Sue Ellen returned to Dallas with her son when J.R. was reportedly killed in a car accident. When J.R. was discovered alive, Sue Ellen reconciled with him. However, upon learning that J.R. faked his death to manipulate his family, Sue Ellen became partners with Bobby in the family company, Ewing Oil to spite J.R.
Misc
Sue Ellen’s is the name of a
lesbian bar in
Dallas,
Texas run by Caven Enterprises in the
Oak Lawn neighborhood, which also operates a bar named J.R.’s in the same area.
In the Hungarian version of the series, Sue Ellen was renamed to Samantha.
References
Ewing, Sue Ellen
Category:Fictional businesspeople
