Bio
Patrick Duffy is an American actor best known as Larry Hagman's younger TV brother, Bobby Ewing, on the primetime soap opera Dallas (1978-1991) and its modern reboot, from 2012-2014.
He is also known for his roles as the title character in Man from Atlantis; and as Suzanne Somers's husband, Frank Lambert, on the sitcom Step by Step.
Duffy's audience appeal has been gained through these highly successful series. Starting with two years of Man from Atlantis, then his 13 years starring as Bobby Ewing on Dallas (including the unprecedented dream season, in which he is brought back from the dead) and finally in seven seasons of the sitcom Step by Step, ending in 1998.
All three series were not only hugely successful in the U.S. but have become benchmark programs all over the world. Man from Atlantis captured a portion of history when it became the first American television program ever to be aired in China.
Patrick was raised in a small town of 600 people in Montana and moved to Seattle as a teenager. It was there he became interested in acting. In 1976 he was cast as Mark Harris in Man from Atlantis. One week after the show was cancelled he was cast in Dallas.
Between the beginning of Man from Atlantis, in 1976 and the ending of Step by Step in 1998, Patrick was only out of work for a total of three weeks. During these years he also starred in over 13 movies for television and countless specials.
While on Dallas, Patrick began his directing career by completing 30 episodes of that series and going on to direct episodes of Step by Step. He and his good friend Larry Hagman co-produced the final television movie of Dallas.
Since 2006, he has been recurring on the CBS daytime soap The Bold and The Beautiful. He also had a cameo in the Touchstone Pictures film You Again.
Other television series he has appeared in include Charlie's Angels, The Love Boat, Knots Landing (as his Dallas character Bobby Ewing), Hotel, Diagnosis Murder, Family Guy (again as Bobby Ewing), Touched by an Angel and Reba.
Duffy has been married to Carlyn Rosser since 15 February 1974. The couple have two children. He has actively practiced Nichiren Buddhism since the early 1960s.
On November 18, 1986, teenagers Kenneth Miller and Sean Wentz murdered Patrick's parents, Terrence and Marie Duffy, during a robbery at the couple's Boulder Bar in Montana.
Wentz and Miller each named the other as the one who fired the shots that killed the Duffys, but both men were convicted of double murder and were each sentenced to 180 years in prison.