Dallas ( /ˈdæləs/) is the third-largest city in the state of Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Divided between Collin, Dallas, Denton, Kaufman, and Rockwall counties, the city had a population of 1,197,816 in 2010, according to the United States Census Bureau.

The city is the largest economic center of the 12-county Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area (the DFW MSA) that according to the March 2010 U.S. Census Bureau release, had a population of 6,371,773. The metroplex economy is the sixth largest in the United States, with a 2010 gross metropolitan product of $374 billion.

Dallas was founded in 1841 and was formally incorporated as a city in February 1856. The city's economy is primarily based on banking, commerce, telecommunications, computer technology, energy, healthcare and medical research, transportation and logistics. The city is home to the third largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the nation. Located in North Texas and a major city in the American South, Dallas is the main core of the largest inland metropolitan area in the United States that lacks any navigable link to the sea.

Pamela Jean "Pam" Barnes (formerly Haynes and Ewing) is a fictional character and one of the female leads in the CBS primetime soap opera Dallas. Pamela is portrayed by actress Victoria Principal, and has appeared on the show since its pilot episode, first broadcast on April 2, 1978. Dallas follows the trials of the wealthy Ewing oil family in the town of Dallas, Texas, of which Pam is married into. Principal played Pam until the tenth season of Dallas, where the character crashes into an oil tanker and her body is severely burned. After this, she is briefly played by actress Margaret Michaels in an attempt to write the character out. Pamela's storylines in the first season focus on her struggle with joining the Ewing family with hostility, while her love for husband Bobby Ewing (Patrick Duffy) remains a strong character trait throughout her tenure on the show. Principal also reunited with several former cast mates in the Dallas reunion special titled "Dallas Reunion: The Return to Southfork" that was televised in 2004, which marked her first public appearance with them since her exit from the show.

Larry Martin Hagman (born September 21, 1931) is an American film and television actor, producer and director most widely known for playing J.R. Ewing in the 1980s primetime television soap opera Dallas and Major Anthony "Tony" Nelson in the 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie. He is also the son of actress Mary Martin.

Hagman was born in Fort Worth, Texas. His mother, Mary Martin, later became a Broadway actress and his father, Benjamin Jack Hagman, was a district attorney. His parents divorced in 1936 when he was five years old. He lived with his grandmother in Texas and California. His famous mother became a contract player with Paramount in 1938 and occasionally took him to her movies.

In 1940 his mother met and married Richard Halliday and gave birth to a daughter, Heller, the following year.^{[citation needed]} Hagman attended the strict Black-Foxe Military Institute (now closed). When his mother moved to New York City to continue her Broadway career, Hagman again lived with his grandmother in California.^{[citation needed]} A couple of years later, his grandmother died and Hagman joined his mother in New York. At age 14 (in 1945) while attending boarding school, he began drinking heavily which led to serious health problems later in life.^{[citation needed]}

Clifford "Cliff" Barnes, played by Ken Kercheval, was a character on the popular American television series Dallas. The Barnes family were competitors and sometimes enemies of the Ewing family. Cliff was the son of Willard "Digger" Barnes and Rebecca Barnes Wentworth. J.R. Ewing (played by Larry Hagman) was Cliff's personal nemesis; Cliff and J.R. were the only two characters to appear throughout the entire run of the series.

During the show's original conception, the character of Cliff was modeled after the late Robert F. Kennedy. However, he evolved into a bumbling sad sack who was very much his own worst enemy. A lawyer and a bureaucrat, not an oil man, Cliff was out of his element when dealing in the cutthroat oil business and, despite repeated attempts, would always be outsmarted and outdone by his rival J.R. Cliff finally beats J.R. in the final season, and takes over Ewing Oil.

Cliff's half-sister, Pamela (played by Victoria Principal), married Bobby Ewing (played by Patrick Duffy), J.R.'s younger brother.

Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan (born Piers Stefan O'Meara; 30 March 1965), known professionally as Piers Morgan, is a British journalist and television presenter. He is editorial director of First News, a national newspaper for children.

Morgan branched into television mainly as a presenter, but has become best known as a judge or contestant in reality television programmes. In the UK, he was a judge on Britain's Got Talent. Morgan is best known in the United States as a judge on the show America's Got Talent, and as the winner of The Celebrity Apprentice. On 17 January 2011, he began hosting Piers Morgan Tonight for CNN in the timeslot previously occupied by Larry King Live after the retirement of host Larry King.

Morgan has authored eight books, including three volumes of memoirs.

Piers Morgan was born on 30 March 1965, in Guildford, Surrey, England, to Eamon Vincent O'Meara, a dentist, of Dorking, Surrey, and Gabrielle Georgina Sybille (née Oliver). His father died when he was one year old; his mother subsequently remarried. He has three older siblings. His ancestry includes Irish, Portuguese, Scottish, and English. Morgan was raised Catholic. Named Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan by his stepfather, Morgan attended an independent school called Cumnor House from the ages of seven to thirteen, and then Chailey School, a comprehensive secondary school in Chailey, near Lewes, East Sussex, followed by Lewes Priory School for VI form. Morgan studied Journalism at Harlow College. After a brief career at Lloyds of London, he joined the Surrey and South London Newspaper Group in 1985, where he worked as a reporter on the South London News, and the Streatham and Tooting News. Morgan was recruited (he says headhunted by editor Kelvin MacKenzie) to join The Sun newspaper, specifically to work on the Bizarre column.