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Ken Kercheval

With his slightly wavy, salt-and-pepper brown hair, his medium height and his ordinary-guy brand of handsomeness, Kercheval carved a solid niche for himself on US TV as various professional types, sometimes sympathetic, sometimes devious, usually ambitious. An incisive player, Kercheval has typically played his roles with an intriguing combination of smooth dispatch and flamboyant bravado; the demands of the small screen taught him the former, while his background in stage musical comedy helped him hone the latter. He is most widely known for his fine work as Cliff Barnes, the aspiring rival to J.R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) and the scheming, perennial loser brother of virtuous Pamela Barnes Ewing (Victoria Principal) on the hit primetime soap, "Dallas" (CBS, 1978-91). Along with Hagman the only principal to stay with the series for its entire run, Kercheval artfully proved that, in the materialist 1980s, an underdog like Cliff, though somehow rather funny and often sympathetic, could be just as sleazy as the top dog.