Ali Wentworth: 8 stories from an inside-the-Beltway childhood

From her new memoir 'Ali in Wonderland,' the actress and comedian shares memories of her Washington D.C. upbringing and later life as a wife and mother.

- Molly Driscoll, Monitor contributor

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Actress Linda Gray

3. 'Dallas' was the highlight of the week for one Spanish family

When Wentworth went to stay with a family in Spain for a summer, every member of the town would come to her host family's house on Wednesday nights to watch "Dallas," since the host family was the only one in the area with a TV. "There would be deafening silence until Linda Gray (whose voice was dubbed by a Hispanic male wrestler) screamed an ultimatum at the stable boy," Wentworth writes. "The room would shake their heads with gasps and tsks. One great-great-great-grandmother would stand up and, shaking her fists, scream at the actors as if certain she was getting through to them."