How Dallas Star Patrick Duffy And The Office's Linda Purl Found Love During Covid - Exclusive
Patrick Duffy raised a lot of 90s kids. If you missed his star turn as the iconic Bobby Ewing on "Dallas" — brother of the iconic "who shot J.R.?" Ewing — then you probably know him as the all-American dad Frank Lambert on the long-running Friday night blended family sitcom "Step by Step". It was comfort food for the mind.
As much as Duffy and "Step by Step" co-star Suzanne Somers made a great team, in real life the handsome actor met The One all the way back in the early 1970s. She was a ballet dancer, and ten years older than Duffy. He and Carlyn Rosser were married in 1974 and had two sons. The couple went strong for well over 40 years until tragedy struck. The love of his life had cancer and eventually died in 2017.
Duffy mourned his wife for three hard years, and then, in 2020, amidst the isolation and uncertainty of Covid lockdowns, he found himself in a group text with "Happy Days" and "The Office" star Linda Purl. Slowly, everyone else peeled off the chat. Their feverish texting gave way to nightly video calls. The two were smitten. Duffy hopped in his car and just showed up on Purl's door, and they've been together since. Now they've made "Doomsday Mom," a Lifetime movie together about another famous couple, the allegedly murderous demon cultists Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell, whose own children vanished under mysterious circumstances. The two sat down with Nicki Swift to discuss the movie, their relationship, and more.
Inside Patrick Duffy's romantic move to win Linda Purl
Linda Purl made a very memorable turn as Pam Beesly's mother in "The Office" when she seduces the much younger "world's best boss" Michael Scott. The romance is hilariously awkward for everyone.
Patrick Duffy, however, is no Michael Scott. After the two connected on Zoom, he decided he couldn't wait any longer and drove 23 hours straight to be by Purl's side. "Well, she is basically my cult leader right now," he joked. Covid had cleared their slates, but they found each other. "Because it wasn't like we had anything else on our calendar," Linda joked. "Like, 'Do you have anything going on?' 'Let me check, oh no, nothing for the next year.'"
The similarities between the two are clear. The two TV stars had both been married before, they shared an industry, and soon a new movie together. Duffy is also a romantic, and it was he who jumped in with the "L-word." Before meeting in person, the two were about to hang up, "I said, 'Okay, bye-bye, I love you.' And I pushed the Zoom off. And I went, 'Oh my God,' " Duffy recalled. "And then, that just took it to the next level, and it was shortly thereafter that the decision had to be made. And it was way past time to just see her on a one-dimensional program. And I had to get there. And we said, 'Yeah, let's do it.' And I drove there, and I never left."
"Doomsday Mom: The Lori Vallow Story" premieres June 26th on Lifetime at 8/7c.