At the apex of her fame as a featured cast member of Dallas, Charlene Tilton was living the dream: $50,000 per episode, more than 65 million watching her on TV during her 1981, star-studded TV wedding, and covers for approximately 500 magazines.
Behind the glitz and glamour, however, Charlene’s was a living nightmare that had looked like the ultimate Hollywood success story.
A bit like a cat
It wasn’t just a show; it was an event. Culturally, it was on its way to become a touchstone that captivated audiences worldwide. The plots were big, the stakes were always sky high, there were no surprises, characters were larger than life. In the middle of it all was the wealthiest and most powerful family in Dallas, the Ewings, who ruled Dallas through wealth, power … and ruthless ambition.
I believe that Charlene Tilton is the only person who can actually do Lucy Ewing justice, in my opinion.
Honestly, she was beautiful and that special sparkle made her character absolutely a thrill to watch. She was a bit of a cat that way, it wasn’t like she came around often but when she did it was a treat.
Her presence on the screen would always kindle excitement in you and light up your day whenever she was involved in the drama. Lucy Ewing was no ordinary character. she was crucial to Dallas. Of course, her fire personality, her charm and those unforgettable moments made her a fans favorite! While she was J.R.’s niece more than just that, she was her own force, and Charlene retained that energy.
You probably didn’t know that Charlene didn’t have an easy road to get where she is today.
Her father didn’t want her
Charlene was born December 1, 1958, in San Diego, California to a life destined to be ridden with challenges from the beginning. Charlene was raised by her mother Katherine, a secretary struggling with severe mental health problems who, along with a broken childhood fastened by emotional instability, was prone to long periods of locking herself in the house.
Absent was her father – a U.S. Air Force pilot at the Pentagon, one who had left a void in her young life he never filled.
Tilton has shared: “My biological father didn’t want anything to do with me.”Dallas was so huge — he had to have known about me but he never reached out.”
Charlene bounced between homes and relatives from the time she was five because by that point she was already in foster care and couldn’t seem to get anywhere stable.
”The kids were saying all the time ‘When is she going to go?’ ” The parents said, ‘We were trying to get somebody to take her off and we couldn’t find anyone.’ I didn’t want to depend on anybody to take care of me, I said to myself.”
Her mother was institutionalized
Charlene was just six when she saw her mother restrained in a straitjacket at a mental hospital, a memory she took with her for years.
The young girl, it turned out, was not one to back down. Two things that would change her life for good were those that she turned to in the middle of hardship. movies and her faith.
She had watched films like Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music and these became her temporary escape to then dream of being an actress. Her faith became her lifeline, her way of emotionally staying alive when there was no reason to.
Her mother was released when Tilton was almost 8 and they came back to California.
However, although her mother was on medication, there were always a lot of pill bottles around her and she still had an ongoing struggle. Often, their apartment was dirty and her mother made her use Tupperware containers to urinate instead of actual toilet, for that matter.
”That went on for years. She said I could never bring friends over.
Charlene went on to enroll at Hollywood High School, where she took to drama classes almost from the word go.
I just wanted to get the fuck out and be an actress.’ She once said that’s all I ever thought about.
Why she was almost embarrassed to her death
Charlene got on, but even at school, her home situation was not something anyone could defend. ‘When Charlene was in junior high and her mother chaperoned one of her dances, ‘she started fighting with herself, having a full on conversation with herself, ‘she said, ‘I wanted to die of embarrassment,” Charlene remembers.’
But Charlene would fulfill her passion for acting as a small role on TV shows like Happy Days and Eight is Enough. Later in 1976, she starred in Disney’s Freaky Friday with Jodie Foster, and it seemed that Charlene’s star would rise. Nothing prepared her for what was to come next.
Charlene was cast as Lucy Ewing in Dallas in 1978. It was no easy ride into the part — she was ultimately dismissed for being too young and inexperienced.
Charlene, who from the age of 15 lived in her own in an apartment, didn’t give up. For nearly two weeks, she snuck onto the set to prove to them that she was more than capable. Eventually, her persistence paid off. Her determination was noticed by the producers and they cast her in the part.
Personal struggles
Charlene’s portrayal of the troubled Lucy Ewing became a smash hit and made her someone that everyone knew. Her TV series character’s wedding episode had 65 million viewers and made history in that.
The pressure only grew as her fame did. She was on every magazine cover, she appeared on every talk show, she was a favorite on game shows. She also was recording music, funding a short film, and hosting events such as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Eve party. While that was going on, she was also keeping her regular roles on things such as Love Boat, Fantasy Island and Circus of the Stars.
And with fame came personal struggles. She was married to country singer Johnny Lee in 1982, and the pair divorced two years later. She had a practically non existent private life. Her issues in her marriage were tabloid headlines, and she got obscane phone calls.
Sometimes, her blonde hair would attract the attention of strangers and they would often try to grab it. People stared and pointed at her when she had gone out to restaurants with her young daughter. To make her heartbreak even worse, Charlene started to run into financial trouble herself, leading to her home being foreclosed.
Rock bottom
But most of those who came near Charlene were nice, and she could see that it came with the territory. Her acting career had fallen about as low as it could by the mid-1980s.
That Saturday Night Live episode that she hosted came to be one of the lowest points of that season. And in the spring of ’85, Dallas let her go. Over the years rumors of a comeback swirled, and she received thousands of letters telling her she should come back, and many of the fans wanted her back.
Charlene Tilton also left Dallas and this was a great disappointment for Larry Hagman. She remembers in 1988, ‘He called me and said: ‘You’re certainly a good actress, we never realized.’” Larry went to bat for me to come back on the show,” I thought.
And come back she did. She returned to Dallas that same year, and stayed there two more seasons before leaving in 1990, a year shy of the series finale.
Charlene Tilton remained close to Larry Hagman, being deeply concerned about his decline in health after Dallas. One that found Hagman being diagnosed with liver cancer that required a transplant in 1995. Thank God, he survived the ordeal and got the transplant. Tilton didn’t appear in any of the Dallas reunion movies, but did make an appearance in Dallas Reunion: The Return to Southfork in 2004.
Her husband died at 54
In 2009, aging hit actress Charlene suffered another huge blow, as her fiancé Cheddy Hart the cinematographer dies. On Charlene’s world, Cheddy’s death of heart failure at age 54 shocked everyone.
She told People, ‘I just sat around drinking and smoking cigarettes on the couch.’
However, instead of allowing tragedy to dominate her, Charlene made the choice to turn her grief into a positive thing. With her platform, she became an advocate for Autism awareness.
However, she also came to find a new sense of purpose and heeling from her work by teaching acting to children and adults on the autism spectrum.
Now, Charlene, 66, lives in Nashville, Tennessee in a quieter life surrounded with her daughter, Cherish, and two grandsons whom she refers to lovingly as “Glamma.”
Charlene Tilton today
As a grandmother, she’s enjoyed the fruit of hard won peace since she came a long way from tumultuous childhood. Charlene told People she has come to terms with her childhood, and after finding out through a DNA test two years ago that she had three halfsiblings who, like her, have never met their biological father.
Then, when they finally found him, they found out that six months before he had died aged 93. But, Charlene says, ‘I don’t carry a chip on my shoulder. I don’t get into self-pity. “I’ve always been an optimist. I see the bright side of things, and that’s help me through tumultuous times.”
Charlene Tilton is an inspiration looking back. From a childhood in foster care to the hurdles of fame to losing personal blessings, she’s seen more hardship than most could be expected to endure.
However, she never gave up throughout it all. In remembered her resilience both as an actress and as a woman, inspiring people everywhere that no matter where you come from, you can win over the most unyielding challenges.