A Letter From The Publisher, Aug. 11, 1980

Even Even before before reporting reporting began for this week's cover story on television's whodunit hit Dallas, two TIME staff members knew the show intimately. Correspondent James Willwerth prepared for his interviews with Dallas producers, writers and actors — including Larry Hagman, who plays Star Villain J.R. Ewing — by sitting through hours of screenings. "I attempted to list which of the seven deadly sins, Ten Commandments and miscellaneous Freudian nightmares were depicted," says Will werth, "but I bogged down after anger, envy, lust, avarice, adultery, coveting thy neighbor's wife and worshiping false idols." Associate Editor Richard Corliss, who wrote the...

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