Dallas looking for new image

It’s never easy for a city to change images deeply embedded in the public mind.

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

DALLAS — Quick now: What are the first three things that jump to mind when you hear the word “Dallas”?

If you answered “cowboys,” “JFK” and “J.R. Ewing,” you are part of the reason Dallas tourism officials regularly tear out their hair as they try to promote their city as an exciting destination for conventions and visitors. And if you said “big hair,” well, there goes another clump.

It’s never easy for a city to change images deeply embedded in the public mind (just think how many visitors still associate Chicago with Al Capone). But Dallas, a glass-and-steel metropolis sprawling across the largely featureless expanse of north Texas, may have an even tougher time than most places in an age when every major American city is clamoring to market itself as fresh and exciting and cosmopolitan and new.

The fact is, Texas’ third-largest city scarcely resembles the place where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963. There’s nary a cowboy to be found among the sleek new skyscrapers, funky lofts, airy museums and ritzy shopping malls that have sprouted here in the last decade.

And the biggest hair you’ll likely encounter here sits atop Dallas entrepreneur Mark Cuban’s head.

But J.R. Ewing still casts a giant shadow over Dallas. The scheming star of the long-running “Dallas” TV soap opera, played by actor Larry Hagman, remains the city’s most recognizable celebrity, despite the fact that he was not real and his cheesy show was canceled 16 years ago after a marathon 14 seasons.

And Southfork, the actual ranch in suburban Dallas that the mythical Ewing clan called home — where many exterior scenes from the TV series were filmed — is still one of the city’s biggest tourist attractions. Every year more than 300,000 pilgrims journey there to gape at such curios as the prop pistol used in the famous “Who Shot J.R.?” episode and the gas grill where the Ewings barbecued huge slabs of beef.

“In Europe especially, J.R. is still a very strong image,” said Phyllis Hammond, vice president of the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau. “We’re so much more than ‘Dallas’ the TV show, but Southfork is the first place many people want to go.”

Recently, NBC’s “Today” show invited Dallas tourism officials to construct a display for one of the show’s studio windows in New York. Hammond said her agency regarded the invitation as a great opportunity to promote everything that’s new and different about their city.

But when the display window was unveiled on TV one morning, the Dallas officials cringed when they heard the song the producers had chosen to play in the background: the signature “Dallas” theme song so annoyingly familiar to every baby boomer.

Now Dallas’ love-hate relationship with “Dallas” has taken a new turn. Hollywood is trying to make the TV show into a big-screen movie — a development that would scarcely seem to help tourism officials in their efforts to drive a stake through J.R. Ewing’s heart.

The movie might be a melodrama or it could end up as a spoof — it’s already been through several rewrites and directors. For a long time, John Travolta was slated to play J.R. Ewing, but this month he was reported to have been dropped in favor of Ben Stiller.

Even more uncertain is the location where the movie may ultimately be filmed. The producers have variously hinted at Louisiana, Florida and even Saudi Arabia as potential stand-ins for Dallas.

This has placed the leaders of the Dallas Film Commission, whose job it is to promote Dallas as a venue for shooting movies, in a most vexing position. Essentially, Dallas officials who hate “Dallas” are trying to coax the producers of “Dallas” to film in Dallas.

The topic is so sensitive that Janis Burklund, director of the film commission, refused to comment last week.

But up at Southfork Ranch, the fickle movie producers have left die-hard “Dallas” fans fuming.

“How can it be ‘Dallas’ if it’s not in Dallas?” said Sally Peavy, manager of tourism operations at the ranch, which has expanded into a venue for conventions and weddings. “It’s sacrilege.”