‘THE COMPLETE BOOK OF ‘DALLAS’ : KALTER DRILLS FOR BACKSTAGE PAYDIRT

Suzy Kalter has no pretense about her latest television book. It is designed to be irresistible, she frankly admitted, to the great number of people who watch “Dallas,” or who know people who do.

“There’s no need to think that anyone’s going to sit and read the book and take notes,” said Kalter.

On the other hand, if an ardent television viewer wants to learn a bit about how shows are put together--how the money side of the business works, this might be a worthwhile read. “It’s a game with a lot of rules,” said Kalter.

The title of the book is “The Complete Book of ‘Dallas,’ ” a bit of a misnomer for anyone looking for more details on the Bobby’s-dead, Bobby’s-not-dead part of the “Dallas” saga.

The book ends in cliffhanger fashion, about where the series did last season, with Bobby peering from the shower.

Kalter, who has written a similar book on “MASH,” spent a year on the “Dallas” set, with easy access to actors and production staff, a dream writing assignment for the former People magazine staffer.

She was handed all 222 scripts from the show and then all the tapes. “I’m the only mother in America,” she said, “with a 6 1/2-year-old child who’s seen all seven years of ‘Dallas.’ ”

Before going on the set, she received a few bits of advice:

First, wear sneakers, which, she concluded, was to either keep her footfalls quiet or to help her cope with item of advice No. 2: Beware of the show’s star, Larry Hagman. “I didn’t know if I was to wear the sneakers because of the sound, or to help me bounce when they threw me off the set,” she said.

It was after a 5:30 a.m. call to the set for the day’s shooting that Kalter, more than a little edgy, was greeted by the fearsome Hagman. “Well, good morning, little darling,” he said with true J. R.-style charm.

“He fascinated me,” said Kalter, who maintains that her basic interest in TV lies in the production end rather than with the stars. “He had so much energy on the set and so much good will. He was very jovial.

“Only next year did I realize that it had all been a facade.” Kalter’s season on the set was the year the show struggled without Patrick Duffy in the role of brother Bobby.

“Hagman admitted that by the end of a day’s shooting he was ready for yelling and screaming,” Kalter said. “He was keeping up a facade.”

The need for Duffy to return to the show was as visible from behind the scenes as it was to viewers, said Kalter. The show went from being No. 1 or 2 most weeks to sixth or seventh in the weekly Nielsens.

Meanwhile, the chemistry on the set was entirely different without Duffy. Also missing that year was producer Leonard Katzman.

“David Jacobs created the characters,” she said, “but Katzman fleshed them out. He left the show the same year Bobby left. Len is the energy behind the series. The three of them--Hagman, Duffy and Katzman--are the three musketeers.

“You work from dark in the morning to dark in the evening,” Kalter said of the series-making grind. “Why do it if it’s not fun? And they make it fun. They provide the energy that makes everybody else run. It wasn’t that Bobby was so essential to the story as it was that he was so essential to the set.”

With Bobby back, the set now resembles a high-school campus, she said. “Larry is the football hero and the bully,” she said. “Bobby is the class president and everybody’s friend. Together, they run the campus.”

Kalter, 38 and married to Michael Gershman, an author of business books, lives in Westport, Conn. She has lived in Texas and majored in Russian history at the University of Texas, a good background for her “Dallas” submersion. “Anything as Byzantine as Russian history is perfect preparation for ‘Dallas,’ ” she said.

But she admits that going into the project, she didn’t know the difference between “Dallas” and “Dynasty.” Now the distinctions are clear in her mind.

“ ‘Dallas’ has an element of reality that keeps it rooted in the family story,” she said. “ ‘Dynasty’ is total glitz, a costume drama. . . . It borders on camp.”

Kalter is already discussing her next television book. It’s to be another dissection of a single program, one in which some social impact can be found. The shows she deals with are pure entertainment, she said, but they also can affect industries, life styles.

Candidates for her next book: “Star Trek” and “The Love Boat.”