Dallas Actors Priscilla Pointer

[ramled99]

Does anyone have ANY intel on why Priscilla Pointer was written out and her character killed off on the show?

 

[KayLloyd]

It was most likely because her contract was up and the writers felt that the character had served her purpose. I can't remember what year her daughter Amy divorced Spielberg, but it's also possible that Priscilla decided to leave the show so she could provide emotional support to Amy.

 

[Sarah]

She will be 93 on Thursday

 

[MenaceTheDennis]

Spielberg and Irving were divorced after Pointer left Dallas. I always thought they let her go to figure in the plot for the control of Ewing Oil. Just one more horrible casualty in Bobby and JRs war.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

I thought Priscilla Pointer was terrific as Rebecca Barnes Wentworth.

I wish she had stayed longer as the character felt really at home on the show.

A shame.

 

[Barbara Fan]

Spielberg and Irving married in 84 and were divorced in 89

they both appeared in this M jackson song

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

I agree she was killed off for story reasons, like Tim Murphy. The battle of Jock's will needed a body count.

Also, now that Pam was divorcing Bobby, she needed huge resources in order to suffer in the appropriate glamour. So she and Cliff had to inherit Rebecca's cash.

 

[Clubsoda]

As important and necessary as her death was to upcoming plot development I always wanted to see her find out what Katherine was really like and go through the dilemma of helping her or disowning her.

I liked her scenes with Clayton aswell and wonder if there could've been a love triangle between him, Rebecca and Ellie haha

 

[Tullamore]

Def a triangle there.
What if Clayton turned out to be Pam's father not hutch?

Do you reckon JR would have hated them both even more????

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

As important and necessary as her death was to upcoming plot development I always wanted to see her find out what Katherine was really like and go through the dilemma of helping her or disowning her.

I liked her scenes with Clayton aswell and wonder if there could've been a love triangle between him, Rebecca and Ellie haha

She certainly did look put out when she saw Clayton with Ellie.

It was an opportunity wasted!

If I didn't know better I'd swear Cidre hadn't a clue how to write the character!!

Obviously being the old Lorimar Dallas the writers had there reasons for killing her off & having Pam & Cliff inherit some of her money & assets. At least we got to see Katherine squirming over what her Mother left Cliff.

 

[pete lashmar]

I loved her in the show, but story and plot wise I feel the writers felt the money & power she had would be better wielded by Cliff & Pam than by her. It's a great shame, I agree that seeing her face off against Katherine would have been wonderful. Maybe they could have added her death further down the series as part of the final episode having spent a few episodes fighting for her life a bit more - induced coma etc, that kind of thing just to give Pam & Cliff more ammunition. It would also have given the writers a chance to write Cliff's grief at not being on the plane turn to thoughts of how much money he would inherit - a good dilemma for someone who always wanted power and money to fight the Ewings.

 

[Luke_Krebbs_Ewing]

I loved her in the show, but story and plot wise I feel the writers felt the money & power she had would be better wielded by Cliff & Pam than by her. It's a great shame, I agree that seeing her face off against Katherine would have been wonderful. Maybe they could have added her death further down the series as part of the final episode having spent a few episodes fighting for her life a bit more - induced coma etc, that kind of thing just to give Pam & Cliff more ammunition. It would also have given the writers a chance to write Cliff's grief at not being on the plane turn to thoughts of how much money he would inherit - a good dilemma for someone who always wanted power and money to fight the Ewings.

She also would've been quite a formidible enemy against JR, than Cliff.

But I suspect that's why her character bit the dust, so they could beef up & augment Cliff's character as JR's nemesis more.

By using her death as a catalyst for Cliff going after revenge against the Ewings. And via her assets have Cliff get as powerful as JR, so that the two of them were evenly matched.

It makes me think that the writers had carefully choreographed Rebbeca's death into the long term story narrative of the series.

 

[Karin Schill]

I really liked Rebecca as well. I wish she had stayed on the show longer.

 

[Mustard]

If anyone was killed off too soon it was Digger Barnes.

To me, when you combine that Digger thought that Rebecca was dead and that Rebecca never divorced Digger and is therefore a bigamist, claiming that she was scared that Digger would drag her back, it can only suggest that Rebecca faked her death when she left Digger, Cliff and Pam, and NOT that Digger was lying in claiming that Rebecca was dead. Digger and Rebecca together would have been interesting.

 

[Presea]

As important and necessary as her death was to upcoming plot development I always wanted to see her find out what Katherine was really like and go through the dilemma of helping her or disowning her.

I liked her scenes with Clayton aswell and wonder if there could've been a love triangle between him, Rebecca and Ellie haha

"Find out what she was really like?" Katherine most likely became that way BECAUSE Rebecca died. She was a lot more normal in season 5 (dvd) with a career and a life that was obviously outside of Bobby since she only shared one scene with him. And the Katherine character was not even written to be a psycho back then since the plan back then was only to have her for that season. There is also no real evidence to suggest that Katherine was always evil or crazy since her past was not explored very much.

 

[Presea]

I loved her in the show, but story and plot wise I feel the writers felt the money & power she had would be better wielded by Cliff & Pam than by her. It's a great shame, I agree that seeing her face off against Katherine would have been wonderful. Maybe they could have added her death further down the series as part of the final episode having spent a few episodes fighting for her life a bit more - induced coma etc, that kind of thing just to give Pam & Cliff more ammunition. It would also have given the writers a chance to write Cliff's grief at not being on the plane turn to thoughts of how much money he would inherit - a good dilemma for someone who always wanted power and money to fight the Ewings.

Why would you want to see Rebecca face off against her own daughter (Katherine)? Family fighting family is entirely too sad. And what makes you think that they would fight anyway? Personally, I believe that Katherine loved her mother and that her death was the last trigger to her insanity. If Priscilla Pointer had stayed, I would have much preferred it if they had explored her mother-daughter relationship with Katherine more and gave them more good scenes together instead of making them adversaries. Sure, they could have butt heads a bit on some things, but a face off seems a bit extreme, and Rebecca already played favorites with Cliff and Pam enough as it was.

 

[Presea]

If anyone was killed off too soon it was Digger Barnes.

To me, when you combine that Digger thought that Rebecca was dead and that Rebecca never divorced Digger and is therefore a bigamist, claiming that she was scared that Digger would drag her back, it can only suggest that Rebecca faked her death when she left Digger, Cliff and Pam, and NOT that Digger was lying in claiming that Rebecca was dead. Digger and Rebecca together would have been interesting.

I agree. I would have liked to see Digger try to pursue Ellie more, or what would happen if he ran into Rebecca again.

 

[Presea]

She also would've been quite a formidible enemy against JR, than Cliff.

But I suspect that's why her character bit the dust, so they could beef up & augment Cliff's character as JR's nemesis more.

By using her death as a catalyst for Cliff going after revenge against the Ewings. And via her assets have Cliff get as powerful as JR, so that the two of them were evenly matched.

It makes me think that the writers had carefully choreographed Rebbeca's death into the long term story narrative of the series.

Too bad she did die, because Cliff just turned into more of a comic relief character, and it didn't even seem like a true rivalry between him and JR. I can't imagine that ever happening to Rebecca's character if she had continued on as JR's enemy.

 

[Presea]

She certainly did look put out when she saw Clayton with Ellie.

It was an opportunity wasted!

If I didn't know better I'd swear Cidre hadn't a clue how to write the character!!

Obviously being the old Lorimar Dallas the writers had there reasons for killing her off & having Pam & Cliff inherit some of her money & assets. At least we got to see Katherine squirming over what her Mother left Cliff.

Katherine deserved all of the money and company assets, not Pam and Cliff, who were not even blood Wentworths. It might have even stopped her from becoming crazy if she felt like she had everything Wentworth because it was actually something from her past. And I imagine that Katherine would have taken the business a lot more seriously than Pam and Cliff did. Heck, Pam couldn't even remember the date for a board meeting of Wentworth Industries!

 

[Mustard]

Katherine Wentworth going completely crazy came from two things:

1. For most of Katherine's life, she thought she was an only child, and that she would be the sole heir to the Wentworth fortune after her parents' deaths. Instead, Cliff and Pam get huge shares in Rebecca's estate after her death, yet Herbert Wentworth never found out about them before his death, even though he briefly met Pam and didn't know who she was. So the majority of Herbert Wentworth's fortune ended up going to the stepkids he never knew about.

2. Katherine was unable to seduce Bobby, let alone marry him. She was instrumental with subtle manipulation of turning Bobby and Pam's separation into a divorce in Season 7 DVD. When Bobby and Pam found out, they ostracized Katherine viciously. Katherine now used her hate from the estate dispute and her inability to get Bobby, by wanting Bobby and Pam dead, or to at least suffer for a long time.

Katherine's behaviour is wrong, but it's completely understandable. She felt that she was betrayed, along with the memory of her late father, and that Pam and Bobby still had the nerve to take the moral highground. It pushed Katherine over the edge.