Poor Cliff Barnes. He was the arch-nemesis of J.R. Ewing in the long-running tv series Dallas though Barnes finally took over Ewing Oil in the end. The actor who brought the character to life, Ken Kercheval, died Sunday.
Kercheval said he had originally patterned the character after Robert F. Kennedy but as Barnes developed through the years took him into more of a foil for the despicable J.R..
Kercheval was with the series from the beginning and stayed through end, returning in 2012 for the brief reboot of the series.
His family is choosing not to reveal his cause of death. In 1994 Kercheval revealed a diagnosis of lung cancer and became an advocate to get people to stop smoking. He was 83.