Remembering the Real J.R. Ewing

In Cutter Frisco, Douglas writes that his father Cloyce put up about $40 million, including the Box Ranch, to secure loans to build a cement plant in Midlothian. This was only a couple of days before Black Monday (1987).

“He literally bet our ranch on a business deal,” Douglas said. “And he lost.”

The Boxes “went through a pretty tragic downfall,” said David Munford, who went to school with Douglas.

The Box Ranch, Munford said, was “the most exceptional property in the area.”

Douglas was an RTVF major at the University of Texas-Austin when Hollywood came to Frisco sometime around the first half of 1978. Douglas got the news –– that there was a television crew at his house –– from his mother, Fern, over the phone one day. Douglas tried to act uninterested, but he couldn’t help himself. He called back, and Fern told him it was a CBS crew.

“I’m, like, CBS, really?! The CBS?!” he said. “A few weeks later, when all my fraternity brothers were headed south to Padre Island, I was headed north to Dallas.”

He said after the pilot episodes were filmed, the producer asked Cloyce if they could film the entire series on the Box Ranch.

Cloyce said no.

“ ‘I’ve got a ranch to run,’ ” Douglas recalls his father’s saying. “ ‘And besides, I don’t like the way the show is portraying the family,’ which was our family.”

Along with the mansion, Box Ranch, which is now Brinkmann Ranch, consisted of several other houses, where some of Cloyce’s less financially successful family members were brought to live.

Two of them were Granny Box and R.D. Box. Cloyce’s parents lived about 200 yards away from each other in two different houses.

In Cutter Frisco, Douglas writes that he never heard his grandparents utter a word to each other while he was growing up.

“They were always real careful not to be seen together or show up at the main house together,” he said.

According to family scuttlebutt, R.D. left Granny at the height of the Great Depression.

“They not only were poor, but they were also poor in spirit,” he said.

By the time the CBS crew had arrived, Douglas said, he had grown accustomed to certain extravagances. The Cattle Baron’s Ball and a party for members of the 1984 U.S. Olympic team were held at the Box Ranch.

“You know, when you have something, and it’s ephemeral, you’re almost better off if you never had it,” he said.

Douglas chose his current profession to help other families avoid the same chaos that his experienced.

“I have a peacekeeper’s heart,” he said. “I take what I do very seriously, because it’s my life’s worth. It’s important to me, because we lost everything.”

Douglas said if a business founder or leader dies, and there is no succession plan, it can spell destruction. He said things grew heated after Cloyce’s death. He and his brothers clashed over money and control of the family oil business. He said that while no guns were drawn or punches thrown, employees had called the police a time or two because “someone had felt threatened.”

Douglas said that he and his three older brothers went through “a very litigious four-year ordeal, where two of my brothers sued me.”

Though Douglas still has some emotional scars, he is glad that there is peace in the family today.

Gary and Thomas helped Douglas write parts of Cutter Frisco, but the two brothers are “somewhat concerned as to how they are going to be construed” in Texas Patriarch, Douglas said.

“I don’t say anybody was a liar or a crook or a thief, you know? I just tell the story,” Douglas said. “And it’s not just the truth according to me. It’s the truth that’s verifiable by legal documents, because I’ve got a whole archive of files back there. And I don’t put anything in writing unless I can back it up. That way, I can sleep at night.”

Douglas said he’s not intending to “air dirty laundry.” He’s simply trying to get other families in similar situations to relate.

Johnson said Douglas “is trying to make a difference in the world.”