Dallas star Linda Gray says she is happy to live her life as a single woman.

She told Hello! magazine: "A lot of women are content on their own and don't want a partner. They want their freedom. We all love to flirt, it doesn't mean you're going to bring the person home or have a sleepover."

She also spoke about her previous marriage of 21 years to art director Ed Thrasher and her struggle to live her dream of being an actress.

"I don't like the word abusive because he was just living the life he knew how to live," she says.

"He was a creative guy and part of his dream was that he wanted to be a cowboy and run a ranch with horses, so when the children were little, we moved out here (to the house they designed and built together) and he had his horses and chickens.

"Then when I announced I wanted to live my dream, the answer was, 'No. You'll become an actor when the children are in college.' I thought, 'My God, we're living his dream, but what about mine?' Of course, women stayed at home and raised their children - that was the way it was - but I was like, 'Is that all there is?'"

She says landing the role of Sue Ellen Ewing in Dallas "opened so many doors, philosophies and ideas".

"All of us - Larry Hagman, Patrick Duffy, myself - were unemployed actors who happened to get a job and that job was Dallas. We had no idea it was going to be successful, so we were like, 'Oh, here we are, trying the best we can.'"

Her co-star, Hagman, famous for playing JR Ewing, died in November 2012.

"We laughed every day," she says, "Every day was different and funny. He was a born entertainer. There was just magic that happened between us. You know when you meet someone and feel like you've known them forever? That's what it was like."

Read the full article in Hello! out now.