Charlene Tilton is known worldwide by the name of Lucy Ewing. The interpreter who gave life to J.R.'s explosive niece in the series Dallas (1978) became famous thanks to the soap opera, in which she shared the scene with Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray, making her one of the most iconic television faces of the 80's.
On screen, the world witnessed their fictitious wedding, passionate love affairs and controversies. But few knew that behind the screen, the actress lived with the trauma of a stormy childhood.
At 64, the interpreter maintains that golden blonde she wore in the eighties, now trimmed in a more comfortable and versatile pixie cut. During an interview with People, the artist explained how she lives this new stage and what she has learned over the years since her rise to stardom: “The older I get, the more I learn to be present on a day-to-day basis. I am very happy, ”she explains.
Tilton has revealed in the same interview that he grew up with his father's absence. “My biological father wanted nothing to do with me. She had to know about me, Dallas was something so big and yet she never contacted me," she says. In the absence of the father figure, the interpreter also faced the health problems of her mother, a diagnosed schizophrenic. "At that time there was no talk of mental illness," he denounced.
From that childhood he only keeps tumultuous and unstable memories. Her being left alone in a strange city after the police took her mother away after having a nervous breakdown, seeing her in a straitjacket, or hearing her scream at someone while she was watching TV. And it was precisely her screen that offered her a momentary escape from all that. “Everything was magical on screen,” she recalls.
Tilton has managed to put those traumatic beginnings behind him and bear the weight of fame. Today, the San Diego-born actress lives a quiet life in Tennessee, dedicated to herself and her family, her daughter Cherish Lee and her two grandchildren.
