“Dallas” star Linda Gray has opened up about one of the most devastating times in her life: when her son, documentary maker Jeff Thrasher, died. His death in 2020 had a tremendous impact on her life and resulted in her moving away from her ranch home of 50 years in California.
Linda Gray Shares the Heartbreaking Loss of Her Son
GettyGray is beloved for her roles in “Dallas,” “Melrose Place,” “Models Inc.,” “Oscar,” and “The Graduate.” When Thrasher, whom she shared with her ex-husband, the late art director Ed Thrasher, died from leukemia at age 56, Gray found she no longer wanted to live on the ranch that she had called home since 1973. She said she was “all alone in this big house on three acres of land,” where the animals were “slowly dying,” Hello! Magazine reports. The publication notes she had dogs, cats, horses, chickens, a pig, and a goat. “I thought, what am I doing here?” she said.
These questions and her daughter Kehly Sloane’s suggestion that she leave the home to make new memories led Gray to embrace a new chapter in her life, “away from the memories of seeing my son every day out there, riding his bicycle and all that.” She now lives in Palm Springs, Southern California, in a home that overlooks a golf course. The change of scenery has brought her a “sense of serenity and peace” which she hadn’t felt “in a long time.”
Linda Gray Embraces Being a Grandmother
GettyThese days, Gray has something else to look forward to: a visit from her grandchildren, Ryder and Jack, when they attend the Coachella music festival. Speaking of their visits, Gray said, “There’s clothes and shoes and stuff all over the house. It looks like a train wreck. It is awful. I just laugh and don’t even look at it. Every bed is filled. They get home at like 3 a.m. or 4 a.m., and the rule is: whatever time you get home, do not wake up your grandmother.”
She continued, “The next rule is: when am I going to wake you up? I got up to make breakfast, and I was not quiet. Those are the joys of being a grandmother.”
Linda Gray Remembers Her Son
While Gray has made a new home for herself, she admits that losing a child is not something she would ever get over. “You never come to terms with,” she said. “He never leaves your heart. I was the one that brought him onto the earth, and that never goes away. As the mother, you brought them on the planet, and then you escorted them out, and that’s devastating.”
But she does have wonderful memories of Ed, who she described as a child “filled with love and life and humor.”
Thrasher’s death is sadly not the only loss that Gray has experienced and in a 2008 interview with Palm Springs Life she opened up a life-changing moment when her sister, Betty died in 1989. “When my sister died of breast cancer, it did something to me. I wake up every day and love each moment,” she said.
In the interview, Gray also revealed that her grandmother was her role model. “My grandmother was always a mentor to me. Grandma said, ‘Never give up. Always do what you want to do, and follow your heart,’” she shared.
