A seasoned stage and film actress, Barbara Bel Geddes eclipsed her Broadway and
big-screen triumphs with a signature role as the winsome matriarch Miss Ellie
Ewing in "Dallas," presiding with patient warmth over the melodramatic
... moreintrigues of the contentious Ewing clan. Her involvement in the long-running CBS
prime-time soap came late in her career, after she had retired in 1966 to care
for her ailing husband. Bel Geddes' own health forced her to leave the show for
most of one season after suffering a major heart attack in 1984, with Donna Reed taking over as Miss Ellie until Bel Geddes
recuperated and rejoined the cast. A New York native and daughter of industrial
designer Norman Bel Geddes, the actress made a splash on Broadway in 1945 but
quickly trained her sights on film work and the goal of working with directors
such as Frank Capra, Elia Kazan and Alfred Hitchcock. A contract with RKO was
cut short by new owner Howard Hughes in 1948, but she not only got work with
Kazan ("Panic in the Streets") and Hitchcock ("Vertigo"), she also enjoyed fresh stage triumphs on Broadway in
the '50s and '60s. Close
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