MOURNING MISS ELLIE
Barbara Bel Geddes
Stage and screen star
Barbara Bel Geddes, best known for playing
Dallas matriarch Miss Ellie, died at her home in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on Monday, the San Francisco
Gate reports. The cause of death was lung cancer. Bel Geddes was 82. The daughter of famed theatrical set designer
Norman Bel Geddes, the actress started her career on Broadway, then made her film debut in 1947's
The Long Night. Not two years later, she garnered her first Oscar nod, for
I Remember Mama. Her other noteworthy projects include
Elia Kazan's
Panic in the Streets,
Alfred Hitchcock's
Vertigo — after a stint on Sen.
Joe McCarthy's blacklist — and Broadway's
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, in which she originated (and landed a Tony nomination for) the role of Maggie. Bel Geddes played
Dallas' Miss Ellie from 1978-84, accumulating three Emmy nods and one win along the way, before health concerns prompted her to cede the role to
Donna Reed. She returned to
Dallas in 1985 for four more years, then retired from acting and did not appear in either of the
Dallas reunion TV-movies.
