Garrison Arthur Ewing

Garrison Arthur Ewing
Season(s)	1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14
Also known as	Gary
Status	Alive
Occupation	Partner in a construction company with Karen MacKenzie Former Investor in Tidal Energy Former Partner in Lotus Point Former Record producer Owner of Westfork Ranch Owner and CEO of Gary Ewing Enterprises Former Shareholder in Ewing Oil Former Employee at Knots Landing Motors Former Foreman at Southfork Ranch
Family	Valene Ewing (wife) (thrice) Abby Ewing (ex-wife) Jock Ewing (father) Miss Ellie Ewing (mother) J.R. Ewing (brother) Ray Krebbs (half-brother) Bobby Ewing (brother) Lucy Ewing (daughter) Betsy Ewing (twin daughter) Bobby Ewing (twin son) John Ross Ewing III (nephew) Christopher Ewing (adoptive nephew) Jack Ewing (cousin) Jamie Ewing (cousin)
Portrayed by	Ted Shackelford

Garrison Arthur Ewing, called Gary, is a fictional character and one of the principal protagonists on Knots Landing. He was the second son of oil baron Jock Ewing and his wife, Miss Ellie of Dallas, Texas.

He was often considered the black sheep of the family, as he would become an alcoholic, and was never treated as an equal by his father and eldest brother, J.R.. However, Gary was loved by his mother and younger brother Bobby.

He was portrayed by Ted Shackelford.

History

Backstory

Gary Ewing, born in January 1944, was married three times to Valene Ewing. They first married in late January 1961, shortly after Gary's 17th birthday (Valene had turned 15 the previous fall). They settled at Southfork much to J.R. and Jock's annoyance. To help the newlyweds out, Miss Ellie bought them a home and gave Gary a job as ranch foreman. Their daughter, Lucy, was born exactly nine months after their marriage, in late October 1961. However, older brother J.R. kept harassing the young couple, and Gary and Valene were soon fighting. He took to drink again, eventually walking out on his family. J.R. also forced Valene out of Southfork. Valene fled to Virginia with baby Lucy, hoping to have her mother, Lilimae Clements, care for her child, but she was refused. J.R. followed Valene, accusing her of prostitution and warning her never to return to Dallas. J.R. took away Lucy and delivered the baby to the care of her grandmother, Miss Ellie.

Dallas

Years later, Gary bumped into his brother Bobby and his wife Pamela in Las Vegas. Bobby persuaded him to visit Texas. While he was visiting, Lucy, his teenage daughter, surprised him by reintroducing him to Valene, who had been working as a waitress in diners around Dallas. For the sake of his ex-wife and daughter, Gary tried to make things work in Texas, but soon came under the old pressures of living up to Jock's expectations and J.R.'s deviousness. J.R. had set Gary up in an office equipment machinery firm in a hope that Gary would fail as usual. To ensure his newfound sobriety, he knew he had to leave Southfork and his family once again. Valene tracked Gary down, while turning down money from J.R. to leave Southfork, and they reunited and remarried. As a wedding present, Miss Ellie bought the couple a house in California, which Gary suggested since they could not return to Texas.

Knots Landing

Gary and Val began their new life in Knots Landing just after the start of their second marriage in 1979, where they met their new neighbors, Sid and Karen Fairgate, where Gary was offered a job at Knots Landing Motors by Sid. Gary settled down into his new life in California, had a great marriage and was good at his job. However, after being given more responsibility by Sid, who promoted Gary to the position of vice-president of Knots Landing Motors, Gary had a few glasses of champagne, at the urging of his neighbors, who didn't know Gary's past problems with alcohol. It was the first time that Gary had drank alcohol in over 2 years. After the initial glasses of champagne, Gary's drinking quickly turned into nasty mood swings and a full blown alcoholic binge. Gary's drinking quickly caused him to hit rock bottom, where he would become extremely aggressive and violent in his desperation for more alcohol, even to the point of possibly killing somebody, and stealing a small bottle of beer from a sleeping homeless man. Val has Gary committed to a rehab facility, lying that Gary had tried to commit suicide in order to get Gary committed. Gary's aggression and violence from falling off the wagon, eventually made Gary admit out loud to himself and to other members of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, that he was an alcoholic.

With the arrival of Sid's sister, Abby Cunningham (Donna Mills), Gary soon found himself lusting after her, as she did for him. After initially rejecting Abby's advances, Gary and Abby eventually slept together and had an affair, until Val discovered it. With Gary being thrown out of his marital home by Val, he moved in with Abby. Gary also became close friends with an up-and-coming singer he discovered, called Ciji Dunne, until Ciji was tragically murdered. Gary initially believed that he might have killed her while heavily drunk, but he later realized that he didn't, and he was acquitted. When Jock was declared legally dead as a result of a plane crash in South America, Gary stood to inherit millions of dollars. He started a company called Gary Ewing Enterprises. A possible reconciliation with Val failed to materialise around this time, and Gary and Val eventually divorced for the second time. Gary also went on to buy a ranch, called Westfork.

Gary soon married Abby, as she secretly started her own company, Apolune. After his marriage to Abby, Gary became the stepfather to Abby's children, Olivia and Brian, from Abby's first marriage to Jeff Cunningham. Gary then met Cathy Geary, who looked a lot like Ciji and began a new friendship with her and had her dress and sing like Ciji too. He also later had a relationship with Cathy. During a moment of weakness, Gary had a one night stand with his ex-wife, Val, and she became pregnant with twins, but Gary assumed that Val's fiancé and future husband, Ben Gibson, was the father. Val eventually named her twin babies as Bobby and Betsy in the 1985–86 season, after Gary's late brother Bobby and Ben Gibson's mother Betsy. Gary's marriage to Abby eventually broke down, and he got engaged to Jill Bennett, who later tried to kill Val. Gary and Val eventually reunited again, 8 years after their second divorce. Gary and Val also lived together with their children, Bobby and Betsy, for the first time, going on to marry each other for the third time in 1991 (Gary's fourth marriage, and Valene's fifth). In 1992, after Val was kidnapped by mafia gangsters in Florida and supposedly killed in a car crash after Gary had tracked her down, a grieving Gary entered into a short-term relationship with a much younger, Kate Whittaker, as she supported him and his children through their grief of losing Val. However, in the 2-part finale to Season 14 in 1993, Val turned up alive, revealing that she was never in the car that she was presumed to have died in. Gary was extremely happy at his wife still being alive, and they got back together.

In the 1997 series Knots Landing: Back to the Cul-de-Sac Kate reveals to Gary that he is the father of her young daughter, Molly Whittaker. At this time, Kate was in a relationship with Gary's former stepson, Brian Cunningham, and was pregnant with Brian's baby.

Occupation

• Partner in a construction company with Karen MacKenzie
• Former Partner in Tidal Energy
• Former Partner in Lotus Point
• Owner and Founder of Gary Ewing Enterprises
  • Owner of Ellington Textile Mills in Massachusetts
  • Owner of a bottling plant in South Carolina
  • Owner of a video game manufacturer in Hong Kong
• Owner of Westfork Ranch in Knots Landing, California
• Former Employee at Knots Landing Motors
• Former Shareholder in Ewing Oil
• Former Foreman at Southfork Ranch in Dallas, Texas