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Pamela Barnes Ewing
Pamela Barnes Ewing †
Occupation: Senior Executive at Barnes-Wentworth Oil
(1983-87)
1/3 Owner of Wentworth Tool & Die
Owner of Pam's Aerobics Unlimited (1982-83)
The Store worker (1978-81)
Marital status: Divorced
Spouse(s): Ed Haynes (1969-70) (annulled)
Bobby Ewing (1978-83, 1986-87) (divorced)
Mark Graison (1986) (Season 8, Dream season only)
Other Relationships: Ray Krebbs, Alex Ward, Mark Gaison
Parent(s): Rebecca Wentworth (mother, deceased)
Hutch McKinney (biological father, deceased)
Digger Barnes (legal father, deceased)
Sibling(s): Cliff Barnes (biological half-brother, legal brother)
Katherine Wentworth (half-sister)
Children: Unnamed child
(miscarriage in 1978)
Unnamed child
(miscarriage in 1979)
Christopher Ewing (adopted)
Other relatives: Pamela Rebecca Barnes (biological half-niece, legal niece)
Maggie Monahan (legal aunt)
Jimmy Monahan (legal cousin)
Played by: Victoria Principal (1978-87)
(as adult)
Uncredited Extra(s) (1987)
Margaret Michaels (1988), (2013 in flashback scenes)
(as adult)
Andrea Wouters
(as child)

Pamela Ewing (nee Barnes; formerly Haynes) (10 April 1950 - July 14 1989) was the sister of Cliff Barnes and the ex-wife of Bobby Ewing. She was also the senior executive at Barnes-Wentworth Oil.

History[]

Early Life[]

Pamela Jean Barnes Ewing was the daughter of Rebecca Blake and Hutch McKinney, although she always believed her real father to be Digger Barnes growing up. Her half-brother is Cliff Barnes.

Pamela was raised by her Aunt Maggie in a poor part of Dallas and became close with both Maggie and her son Jimmy Monahan. She became a cheerleader in high school and went to the sun bowl. While there she set off to marry a soldier named Ed Haynes, but her father broke up the marriage before they could consummate it.

Life in Dallas[]

Pam and Bobby elope to New Orleans and are married. After Bobby brings Pam home to Southfork, she is met with great hostility from the Ewing family for being the daughter of their enemy, Digger Barnes. Early on, Bobby's brother, J.R. Ewing, accuses Pamela of being a spy for her brother, Cliff Barnes, who is building a case against Ewing Oil, claiming that she passed a very important company file to Cliff. Bobby vigorously defends his wife and the family eventually find out that Pam is innocent. Shortly afterwards, Pam becomes pregnant with Bobby's child. However, she argues with a drunk J.R. and falls from the rafter of a barn, causing her to miscarry the baby.

After her miscarriage, much of the hostility from the family evaporates, with the exception of J.R. He openly despises her and her brother. In 1979, Pam is told by Digger's doctor that Digger was a carrier of neurofibromatosis, and that she and Cliff, as his children, were carriers; as neurofibromatosis is a potentially fatal disease to infants. Ironically, Pam soon discovers she is pregnant again. As before, however, tragedy strikes as a rattlesnake frightens Pam's horse when she is out riding and throws her, causing a second miscarriage. In 1980, Pam watches Digger die slowly and painfully as a result of his decades of heavy drinking. On Digger's deathbed, he tells Pam that she's not his biological child, but born after an affair her mother Rebecca had with Hutch McKinney. Overwhelmed by a sense of loss after Digger's death and deathbed confession, she pushes to find out more about what happened to her mother. She develops a notion that perhaps her mother isn't dead after all. Then a private investigator turns up evidence that her mother had not died as Digger had said, but was alive in Houston. Meanwhile, Bobby has taken over Ewing Oil while J.R. is convalescing after being shot. Pam watches her husband get deeper and deeper into the heart of business in an effort to prove himself, and takes note of Bobby's instinctive attraction to power, which she realizes might be a danger to their marriage.

The baby issue continue to haunt Pam, after learning that she is unlikely to carry a child past the third month of pregnancy. Her depression culminates in near-fatal tragedy: Pam tries to kill herself by jumping off the top of the place of her employment, The Store. However, Bobby stops her but it is clear that Pam needs psychiatric help. She is admitted to a psychiatric hospital where she can get the help she needs. Pam checks herself out of the hospital and goes back to Southfork, where she surprises Bobby, who has just walked in with a baby boy in his arms. In soaring spirits, Pam quickly settles in to her life as mother to Christopher. She and Bobby grow closer during this period. In May 1982, Bobby finally tells Pam about Jeff Faraday, Kristin Shepard and the fact that J.R. could be Christopher's father. Pam is shocked that Bobby had kept this from her but doesn't hesitate to fly to California with him to find the truth, preparing to fight whoever she has to in order to keep her son. As Rebecca is leaving for Houston on business, the Wentworth jet was involved in a midair collision. Rebecca dies as a result of her injuries. Pam is devastated and angry, blaming the contest between J.R. and Bobby for her mother's death. Pam leaves Bobby and they divorce in the fall of 1983.

By 1985, Bobby and Pam realize that they want to be together. Bobby proposes, Pam accepts and they spend the night together. The next day, Bobby is tragically run down by a car driven by her half-sister, Katherine Wentworth, and dies hours later, leaving Pam heartbroken. It is later revealed that Bobby's death and all the events following it were a dream had by Pam. She awakes and finds Bobby in the shower, alive and well. Later on, Pam receives good news, she is finally able to conceive a baby, after confirming that there would be no health risks involved. However, she never gets that chance. While calling her husband to tell him the good news, she is in a massive auto accident where she hits an oil tanker and is severely burned in a subsequent fire. While recovering from her burns, she decides to get away from the Ewings and everyone else, including her son, disappear and divorce Bobby for a second time.

Pam made a brief appearance in the season 12 premiere, with a different appearance as a result of plastic surgery. She tells her brother Cliff that she is happy in her new life and plans to marry her doctor. Later, after Cliff leaves, her doctor asks why she didn't tell Cliff that she has a terminal disease and only has few months to live. This was Pam's final appearance in the series, although Pam was not immediately declared dead on the show.

On the Dallas (2012 Series)[]

During J.R. Ewing's funeral on March 11, 2013, it was revealed that J.R. had been investigating Pam's disappearance before he died.

In the episode "Let Me In", the Ewings discover Rebecca Wentworth left one-third of Barnes Global to her daughter, Pam, which Christopher would inherit in the event of her death. In the episode "A Call to Arms", Christopher tries to have his mother declared legally dead so he can inherit her shares of Barnes Global.

In the same episode, an agent named Ellis finds a list of deposits made to a Swiss account that mirror the amount in the trust, indicating there is still activity and signaling she remains alive. However, in the episode "Legacies", Pam was finally declared legally dead. Her plastic surgeon explains that she had been horribly burned and fled her family for fear of being unattractive. She underwent several surgeries in an attempt to reverse some of the badly scarred tissue left by the oil truck explosion. Unfortunately, she had developed pancreatic cancer. She flew to Abu Dhabi to receive an experimental operational surgery and died on the surgery table.

According to Pam's death certificate, she was born on April 10, 1950 and died on July 14, 1989, making her only thirty-nine years old at the time of her death. However, this contradicts the flashback scenes of the episode "Jock's Trial, Part II" in Season 3, in which Pamela's mother is pregnant with Pamela after the 1952 presidential election.

Quotes[]

"Your folks are gonna throw me right off that ranch."


"I had a terrible nightmare, you were dead and Katherine ran you down. It seemed so real."


Gallery[]

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