Linda Gray Says Her ‘Dallas’ Kisses With Larry Hagman Were Anything But Romantic

They looked like passionate kisses between one of television’s most iconic couples.

But Linda Gray says the romance viewers saw on Dallas was sometimes a lot harder to pull off than anyone watching could imagine.

“The first time we kissed, he had a mouthful of peanut butter,” the actress, 85, told Fox News of her late costar Larry Hagman in an interview published on Sunday, August 9.

“I thought, ‘Oh no.’ And I had to keep going with this kiss,” Gray, who played troubled Sue Ellen opposite Hagman’s scheming J.R., continued. “The camera didn’t know what was going on. But here I was, kissing him with peanut butter.”

After the scene was finished, she added, “I almost killed him. I was like, ‘You are so bad and very inappropriate, Larry.’ And he didn’t care. He just kept laughing. He thought that was funny.”

“He had told me quite honestly that he didn’t like kissing scenes,” she explained of the I Dream of Jeannie alum, who died at age 81 in 2012.

“And I thought, ‘Well, we’re going to be kissing a lot!’ So when there was a kissing scene, Larry cringed, just cringed. He did not like it,” Gray said, adding that over the years, she had to contend with onions and “whatever he could find in a jar.”

“But I think the pranks, psychologically, were his way of getting over the anxiety of having to kiss me on camera,” she concluded.

Thankfully, the experience didn’t totally sour her time on the show, where she appeared from 1978 to 1989. She returned for the revival of the series from 2012 to 2014.

And the Models Inc. alum is now giving fans another chance to revisit that era, teaming up with Julien’s Auctions for “Ladies of the ’80s,” an August 12 sale featuring costumes, props, personal archives and memorabilia from beloved television stars.

Among Gray’s offerings are two original Dallas scripts tied to the legendary “Who Shot J.R.?” storyline.

“I don’t look at it as letting these items go,” Gray told the outlet. “I look at it as sharing. There are a lot of people who still feel very connected with the show. And it feels good to share.”