'Dallas' star Patrick Duffy and Linda Purl recall start of surprising love story: 'Both nervous as teenagers'

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Patrick Duffy and Linda Purl fell in love online

The "Dallas" star and "Happy Days" actress revealed how COVID brought them together over Zoom calls.

Patrick Duffy and Linda Purl found love during the pandemic thanks to technology, a story becoming almost as conventional as the ovens they now use to bake the 70-year-old sourdough starter Duffy has cultivated since he was a little kid.

The "Dallas" star, known for his role as Bobby Ewing, and actress Purl, who played Fonzie’s girlfriend Ashley Pfister on "Happy Days," traveled in the same social circles for decades while they worked in the entertainment industry, but never sparked a match.

Duffy and Purl were part of a texting group created by Richard Thomas, also known as "John-Boy" from "The Waltons," but as soon as COVID-19 lockdowns forced people to connect in different ways, Duffy and Purl discovered they had something special.

Both of the actors had been married before, and after hours of texts, phone calls and video chats, they knew they were now ready for their next "great adventure" together as a couple. But neither one was prepared for what was perhaps their biggest job to date as they measured a new kind of success and embarked on creating a business based on the beloved sourdough starter he's carried around for all of these years — Duffy's Dough.

"Our whole life now is pre-Linda, post-Linda; pre-Patrick, post-Patrick. That's how we figure out where things are in our history," Duffy said during an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital. 

‘DALLAS STAR PATRICK DUFFY REVEALS SECRET BEHIND LAST ROMANCE WITH ’HAPPY DAYS' ACTRESS LINDA PURL

"Dallas" star Patrick Duffy and "Happy Days" actress Linda Purl exclusively spoke with Fox News Digital about the love they found in the digital age, and building a business based on sourdough starters. (DuffysDough.com)

Duffy found fame on the '70s CBS soap opera about an affluent Texas family, and then starred as the patriarch on "Step by Step" for seven seasons before heading to daytime TV, with dozens of roles in between. Patrick had been married to professional dancer Carlyn Rosser for more than four decades until her death in 2017. The former couple has two sons.

"We met just like this," Duffy said as he motioned toward the camera on his computer. "We knew each other for almost 50 years within the business. You know, I knew of Linda Purl. She knew of Patrick Duffy. At some celebrity event, you would say, 'Oh, hi, and then that would be it." 

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Purl's lengthy resume also includes portraying Andy Griffith's daughter, Charlene Matlock on "Matlock," her role as Pam Beesley's mother on "The Office," in addition to a host of TV roles including a recent stint on "General Hospital."

She was married to Lucille Ball's son, Desi Arnaz, Jr., in 1979, and has one son with her ex-husband Alexander Cary.

"We started a group with a mutual friend. Richard Thomas, "John-Boy" from "The Waltons," who was a friend to both of us, and we didn't know that, and he's sort of responsible for us being able to say, 'Oh, you're a friend of Richard's.' So we started texting as a group just before COVID hit. When COVID hit, I was in Canada doing a film. Linda in New York doing a play. Richard was someplace else, and we all went to parts unknown. The only way we could communicate was like this."

Patrick Duffy (left) and Larry Hagman, as Bobby Ewing and John Ross 'J.R.' Ewing Jr., filmed "Dallas." (CBS Archives)

Patrick Duffy (as Bobby Ewing) and Victoria Principal (as Pamela Barnes Ewing) talk during a scene of "Dallas" in 1983. (CBS Photo Archive)

Duffy recalled how the pair first started texting and then eased into FaceTime. "We thought that was a great adventure. Then Richard found other things to do, and it was just Linda and myself sporadically saying, 'How you doing? What's going on?'"

"When we started being able to see each other like we are right now from, you know, a thousand miles apart and got to know each other so well, we Zoomed every single night for 2 to 3 hours, every night for over two months," he said.

"Life had stopped," Linda said. "We couldn't work, no one could see their friends. You couldn't go out. So, we were just in our respective homes and in this contemplative sort of pause. And had it not been for that pause, we never would have found or made the time to have conversations like that. 

"I feel guilty because, well, everyone had their own ride in the pandemic and ours was … ours was this."

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After a few months of Zoom calls, they realized "oh this could be more than a friendship," and she recalled a conversation where they agreed, "When this thing ends in a year or so, let's get together."

"But then it was like, Oh, this is turning a corner," she said. "And Patrick heroically got in his car and drove from Oregon to Colorado. We were both nervous as teenagers, but we've been together since."

Linda Purl (pictured with Henry Winkler in 1982) played Fonzie's girlfriend in 27 episodes of "Happy Days." (ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content)

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Linda Purl has starred in dozens of roles, and appeared in the ABC TV movie "Dark Mansions" in 1986.  (Peter Sorel)

He added, "Two and a half years, and we've never been apart. This is the longest we've been apart right now."

While they may be physically in different locations, their growing business based on his sourdough starter and love for the kitchen is certainly giving them time together. 

"Duffy's Dough came about because my parents loaded my sister and myself in a truck and a little 18-foot trailer house in 1952 and drove our sorry butts up to Alaska," Duffy recalled. "And it was while my mother was up there that this nice old lady — and it's actually written in her diary on May 12, 1952 — gave my mother a sourdough starter, and she kept it in the family all these years. 

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"My sister then took it, and when I graduated from college and was living on my own, I decided I'd give it a try. My sister gave me a starter off of that original one, and I've had it ever since. We've been cooking in the Duffy family out of this original sourdough starter for over 70 years now." 

"When the second ‘Dallas’ was canceled, I started then going to friends' houses, and that's when friends of mine would invite me to local charity events, and I would bring the salad and a little kit and instructions and history, and they would auction it off. It cost me nothing to do it in my own kitchen, but it would sometimes raise a couple of thousand dollars.

"I thought, it's not just the sourdough, but it's the story, and it's the whole mythology around sourdough. That's when I started really focusing on baking and giving it to as many people as possible. Then along came Linda."

Laura Wright and Linda Purl star in an episode of "General Hospital." (Craig Sjodin)

Patrick Duffy and Suzanne Somers starred in the TV sitcom "Step by Step" for seven seasons beginning in 1991. (ABC Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content)

Linda was once married to Desi Arnaz Jr. Pictured from L-R in 1980, Gary Morton, Lucille Ball, Lucie Arnaz, Linda Purl, Desi Arnaz Jr., Laurence Luckinbill and Desi Arnaz  (Vinnie Zuffante/Michael Ochs Archives)

Duffy admitted that he dropped practically everything else to turn his passion in the kitchen into a real business, and was grateful for Purl's help in keeping him motivated to pursue the project. The sourdough starter kit includes everyday essentials, including a rolling pin, measuring spoons, an apron and recipes shipped directly to your door.

"Thank heavens we didn't know what we were signing up for when we began," she said before giving praise to the "great roster of pals" they've turned to for advice every step of the way.

"We said, ‘How do we do this?’ And they said, ‘Easy, you get a box, you put the things in, you put it online, and you sell it.’ OK, well, we thought that sounds great," Purl said. "Oh, you make the dehydrated starter? By the way, Patrick has personally made every flake of dehydrated starter that goes into the first 1,000 kits that we're selling."

She was his biggest supporter from the start.

"Our model, our sort of pipe dream model (for Duffy's Dough sourdough starter kits) is Paul Newman and what he's managed to do with Newman's Own," she said. "So our aim is to be able to get this little baby up to a point where it has this strong fiscal model, and then we can give back. Because we're a food-oriented business, it would initially be toward food scarcity, and that's our little engine that's trying to get up the mountain right now."

When asked if Duffy or Purl would hesitate to pursue new opportunities when it comes to possible television or movie roles, both agreed that artistic expression is at the heart of who they are.

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"There were only three stations when I started, you know, later on four. So we knew everybody in the business, and we knew how unique it was to be in our position. And there was a there was an element of celebrity, but also a great element of privacy and respect," Duffy explained of the "clubhouse" atmosphere in the industry at the time. "Not that there's no respect now, but it has blossomed into such an enormous octopus industry with hundreds of stations and all of this stuff. And you've lost that that individual kind of feeling of 'We're a club and this is what we do,' and there are good things about that, too. 

Patrick Duffy and Linda Purl have known each other for five decades but only recently became an item when they began dating during the pandemic. (DuffysDough.com)

"The diversity factor has blossomed. The content factor has just exponentially gotten bigger. There's a part of me that does miss the going to work as a laborer with fellow laborers who appreciate each other and then going home and being a normal person. And I think the blossoming of this industry that we're in has eliminated part of those nice little nuances, but it's given back in other areas, too. So more people have opportunities, more content is being invented by brilliant minds who, you know, we're probably out of that little clubhouse membership."

He added, "So there's good and bad. And Linda and I are so fortunate that our careers have spanned over those chasms of change. And every time the phone rings and somebody says to one of us, ‘Would you like to do this?’ We say, ‘Absolutely.’"

Linda agreed, "Are you kidding? Yeah."

"We're for hire. You know, have max factor; will work. We're just out here to do our job, and we're grateful," Duffy said. "We wake up with appreciation for every moment of what we've got."