41 Facts About Cliff Barnes

The Barnes family are competitors and sometimes enemies of the Ewing family.

JR and Cliff Barnes were the only two characters to appear throughout the entire run of the series.

Thanks to Carter McKay, Cliff Barnes finally beats JR in the final season, and takes over Ewing Oil.

Cliff Barnes had a close relationship with his sister, Pamela and hated that she married Bobby Ewing, JR's younger brother.

When Dallas began, Cliff Barnes worked for the state of Texas, building an impressive recorded reputation as investigator of corruption within the independent oil companies.

Penny had become pregnant by Cliff Barnes but refused to have the baby since she had been admitted to law school, so Cliff Barnes reluctantly fulfilled Penny's wish but she died during the operation as the abortion doctor turned out to be incompetent.

The scheme worked as Cliff Barnes resigned from his position to run for Congress.

Cliff Barnes had an affair with JR's wife, Sue Ellen during the second season of Dallas.

When Sue Ellen became pregnant, it was believed Cliff Barnes was the father of her baby.

Cliff Barnes was worried that John Ross III might develop the potentially fatal disease, but Bobby and Pam convinced him to keep quiet.

Cliff Barnes realized that the scandal would embarrass JR and sued for custody.

Shortly after taking the position, Cliff Barnes promoted the prosecution of Jock Ewing for a 30-year-old murder, which was dismissed after, ironically, Digger Cliff Barnes confessed to the murder on his deathbed.

In season four, Cliff Barnes began working with state senator Dave Culver, believing that Culver would be destined for powerful office.

Relations between Donna and Cliff soured and quickly ended when Dave was appointed to the US Senate and Donna's party committee chose Bobby Ewing to run for his vacant state senate seat.

Cliff Barnes accepted but after a short tenure, they had a falling out over Cliff Barnes's decision to start a senate investigation against JR for alleged organization of a counter-revolution in Southeast Asia.

Cliff Barnes happily accepted and did extraordinarily well for a time.

Rebecca asked Cliff Barnes to run the company for her and he accepted.

That year, Cliff Barnes won the coveted "Oil Man Of the Year" award at the Oil Baron's Ball.

Cliff Barnes married Jamie Ewing, daughter of the late Jason Ewing and therefore a cousin of JR and Bobby, in 1985, but the union was unhappy as Cliff Barnes having married Jamie purely for the inheritance he always believed to be his birthright.

Cliff Barnes left him in late 1986 and the union was headed for a divorce when Jamie was killed due to a fall while on a mountain climbing holiday.

Cliff Barnes eventually realizes his dream of taking over a share of Ewing Oil and for a time enjoys a good personal and business relationship with Bobby, whilst JR is temporarily sidelined from the business.

Cliff Barnes is shown at this time to be a loving and attentive uncle to Christopher, who is suffering from the absence of his mother.

Cliff Barnes enjoys a seemingly open welcome to Southfork during this time, something that would have been unheard of in earlier seasons.

Cliff Barnes had grown up poor in contrast to JR after the partnership between Cliff Barnes's father Digger and Jock Ewing dissolved, due in large part to Digger's heavy drinking.

Cliff Barnes inherited Digger's resentment of the Ewings, and as well as the tendency to sometimes drink heavily.

Cliff Barnes eventually got one over JR shortly before the TV series ended when he took over Ewing Oil.

Cliff Barnes became a lawyer who was married to a woman who loved him for himself, not his money, and had two grown children.

Cliff Barnes turns out to have become Vice President of the United States and at a party, learns the President has suffered a stroke and he's assumed the presidential powers and duties, as acting president.

Cliff Barnes appeared in the 1996 film Dallas: JR Returns, wherein after 5 years at Ewing Oil, he decides he has had enough of the oil business, and looks to sell.

Cliff Barnes reappeared in the 2012 continuation of the series, which picks up 20 years after the original series concluded and ignores the events of the two 1990s TV movies.

Cliff Barnes emerges as a far more darker, sinister and sociopathic character which is far different than the Cliff Barnes depicted in the original series.

Cliff Barnes wants to buy Southfork, which Bobby has put up for sale.

JR walks in on their conversation and warns Cliff Barnes against trying to buy the Ewing family home.

Cliff Barnes later invites his adoptive nephew, Christopher, and his new wife, Rebecca, to dinner and expresses an interest in investing in Christopher's energy project.

Christopher declines, as he thinks that Cliff Barnes just wants to antagonize the Ewings again; however, Cliff Barnes warns him not to let the Ewings destroy him like they did his adoptive mother, Pamela.

When JR arrives at Sue Ellen's office to give her Miss Ellie's pearls, a good luck charm for her Texas gubernatorial campaign, Cliff Barnes arrives to take Sue Ellen to lunch to discuss politics.

Cliff Barnes's desire to spite the Ewing family persists and Cliff eventually directs the bombing of a methane-extracting rig belonging to Ewing Energies, which results in the deaths of Christopher and Rebecca's two unborn children.

The ensuing events result, at the end of season two, in the Ewings taking control of Barnes Global and folding it into a larger company known as Ewing Global, with Cliff sitting in a Mexican jail, charged with murdering JR Ewing.

Cliff Barnes told Elena to make the Ewings pay for JR's sins against her family and gave her proxy over the one-third share of Barnes Global he still owned in the company.

Cliff Barnes is shown to be behind Rebecca's attempt to hustle Christopher.

Cliff Barnes had however given him the deed to the land that Digger had deserved, only at the expense of not being able to enjoy it.