‘I Owe Everything to That Show’: ‘Dallas’ Star Patrick Duffy Looks Back At ‘Man from Atlantis’
Bobby Ewing is his most popular role, but Patrick Duffy fondly recalls aquatic hero Mark Harris
If you’re a fan of Dallas, chances are you remember the moment Pam Ewing (Victoria Principal) opened the bathroom door and discovered her supposedly dead husband Bobby (Patrick Duffy) alive and well, standing in the shower. That unforgettable twist—explaining away an entire season as just a dream—was the producers’ way of undoing Bobby’s death, driven by the realization that the show simply didn’t work without him. But for Duffy himself, the real starting point of his career didn’t begin at Southfork Ranch. It started a few years earlier, in the deep blue sea.
“I wouldn’t have been on Dallas if it weren’t for Man from Atlantis,” Duffy said plainly. “The producer who cast me as Bobby was working on another show, shooting right next door to Man from Atlantis. He saw me there, asked me to play Bobby and I never even auditioned. If Atlantis hadn’t been happening right there, that opportunity might never have come. So, it’s a huge part of my career story.”
Premiering in 1977 as a series of four made-for-TV movies, Man from Atlantis quickly evolved into a weekly series with 13 hour-long episodes, and joined such other primetime superheroes as The Six Million Dollar Man, Wonder Woman, The Bionic Woman and The Incredible Hulk.
What it’s all about
Duffy starred as Mark Harris, a mysterious amnesiac discovered washed ashore with gills, webbed hands and feet and a physiology capable of withstanding extreme underwater pressure. As scientists investigate his origins, it’s speculated that Mark may be the last survivor of the legendary lost city of Atlantis. Eventually, he joins the Foundation for Oceanic Research, a government-sponsored agency tasked with exploring the oceans and preventing deep-sea threats from reaching the surface. Belinda J. Montgomery co-starred as Dr. Elizabeth Merrill, the compassionate researcher who first found Mark and helped nurse him back to health.
What viewers didn’t know at the time was just how close the show came to casting someone who would become famous as a different superhero. “We thought we were going to have the guy who eventually played Superman in the movies,” producer Robert Justman recalled. “Chris Reeve came in and we met with him, but it didn’t pan out.”
Executive producer Herbert F. Solow elaborated, saying, “Chris had just come to town from New York where he was doing a soap opera. I told him, ‘If you want the role, you have it.’ But a few days later, he called back and said, ‘I’m an actor. I don’t want to have to wear things or do this kind of stuff.’ I understood that.”
Instead, the role went to Patrick Duffy—though not without a battle. “A casting lady had seen a Pizza Hut commercial with this young, skinny actor in it,” Solow said. “It was Patrick. He came in and we talked. He had this great sense of humor and British-style acting training—boxing, fencing, motor work. He could swim, too. I thought, ‘This guy has something.’” NBC wasn’t so sure.
“They thought he was too skinny to be this underwater superhero,” Justman said. “They kept sending over these Muscle Man types—guys who couldn’t even say their names, just strike poses.”
Solow confirmed the network’s reluctance. “NBC found some hulking bodybuilder in Hawaii they wanted to cast. I said, ‘Find me a fat swimmer. They don’t exist. Swimmers are lean, muscle-defined. Patrick was exactly what we needed.’” To help sell the idea to NBC, the team got creative.
“We had him train in a pool and work with weights,” said Justman. “Then when he went to meet NBC, we had him wear this long-sleeved nautical sweater with padding inside to make him look bulkier. Luckily, they said yes.”
Solow also brought in veteran stuntman and fitness expert Paul Stader to help bulk Duffy up physically. “In six weeks, he looked great,” Solow said. “And he was enormously cooperative. We had him floating in seaweed for hours in Malibu, racing dolphins at Marineland, you name it. Patrick always won the race, of course.”
A stranger in a strange land
While Man from Atlantis wasn’t based on a novel or comic, its themes echoed familiar sci-fi territory. One notable influence: Robert A. Heinlein’s 1961 novel Stranger in a Strange Land, which followed Valentine Michael Smith, a human raised on Mars who returns to Earth and struggles to make sense of the world around him. Duffy saw a similar emotional arc in his character.
“Man from Atlantis wasn’t an adaptation,” he clarified, “but that whole idea of viewing the world through new eyes is a recurring theme in science fiction. That’s what I loved. As Mark Harris, I got to explore everyday objects and experiences as if I had no idea what they were. You look at a plastic cup and think, ‘Okay, what is this? What’s it for?’ That childlike curiosity was at the heart of the show.”
Solow said that exact premise was part of the pitch from the beginning: “The idea came from someone in business affairs asking, ‘What if a body floated up on the beach—and it was from Atlantis?’ I thought, ‘Yeah, that’s a show. A body with webbed hands and feet washes up near my house in Malibu. The person doesn’t speak English. He’s from Atlantis. From there, Mayo Simon and I developed the script and NBC went for it.”
Superheroes before they were in vogue
In many ways, Man from Atlantis was ahead of its time. Long before the rise of Marvel and DC cinematic universes or CGI-heavy TV epics, this was a weekly network series centered on a full-fledged superhero—albeit one who lived in the sea rather than soared through the sky.
“It was fun to play a superhero,” Duffy said. “Of course, this was before digital effects. We didn’t have green screens or computer-generated anything. Everything had to be physically done on set. If I had to fly or leap, they’d rig me to a crane and haul me up. It was physically demanding, but incredibly creative.”
Solow echoed that sense of creativity: “We had to do everything practically. No digital tricks. It made things challenging, but also really rewarding. And Patrick never once complained. He was the most cooperative human being.”
And while the show only lasted a brief time, airing its final episode in June 1978, its impact has lingered. For a generation of young viewers, especially those growing up in the late ’70s, Mark Harris became a kind of aquatic role model.
“There weren’t many superheroes on TV back then,” Duffy noted. “You had George Reeves as Superman back in the day and The Six Million Dollar Man was airing around the same time. But we were one of the first to present a weekly hero with actual superpowers—not just a strong cop or a brilliant detective, but someone otherworldly. That was ambitious for television in that era.”
A cult following that endures
Though the series was short-lived, Man from Atlantis carved out a loyal fanbase. And for Duffy, that following has endured for decades.
“There’s a clique of people who never forgot Man from Atlantis,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many men have come up to me and said, ‘I was eight years old and I used to try and swim like you in the pool.’ It really made an impression on kids at that age. They saw something magical and it stuck with them.”
In fact, the show’s influence was strong enough that decades later, Warner Archive released the complete series on DVD, giving old fans a chance to relive the adventures—and introducing a new audience to one of television’s earliest attempts at merging sci-fi and superhero storytelling. And Duffy has never distanced himself from it.
“It was the first big break of my career,” he said, “and it led to everything else that came after. I’ll always be grateful to Man from Atlantis.”
Conversation
All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. Woman's World does not endorse the opinions and views shared by our readers in our comment sections. Our comments section is a place where readers can engage in healthy, productive, lively, and respectful discussions. Offensive language, hate speech, personal attacks, and/or defamatory statements are not permitted. Advertising or spam is also prohibited.
