Barbara Bel Geddes

For a political scientist, see Barbara Geddes.

Barbara Bel Geddes
Bel Geddes in 1952
Born	(1922-10-31)October 31, 1922 New York City, U.S.
Died	August 8, 2005(2005-08-08) (aged 82) Northeast Harbor, Maine, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1941–1990
Spouses	Carl Sawyer ​ ​ (m. 1944; div. 1951)​ Windsor Lewis ​ ​ (m. 1951; died 1972)​
Father	Norman Bel Geddes
Website	www.barbarabelgeddes.com

Barbara Bel Geddes (October 31, 1922 – August 8, 2005) was an American stage and screen actress, artist, and children's author whose career spanned almost 5 decades. She was best known for her starring role as Miss Ellie Ewing in the television series Dallas. Bel Geddes also starred as Maggie in the original Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. Her notable films included I Remember Mama (1948) and Vertigo (1958). Throughout her career, she was the recipient of several acting awards and nominations.

Early and personal life

Bel Geddes was born on October 31, 1922, in New York City, the daughter of Helen Belle (née Schneider; 1891–1938) and stage and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes (1893–1958). She married theatrical manager Carl Sawyer (né Schreuer) in 1944; they had one daughter, Susan. They divorced in 1951. Later that year, she married stage director Windsor Lewis, with whom she had a daughter, Betsy. When Lewis became ill in 1967, Bel Geddes suspended her career to care for him; he died in 1972.

Career

Bel Geddes as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), photographed by Carl van Vechten

Broadway

Bel Geddes came to prominence in the 1946 Broadway production of Deep Are the Roots. The performance garnered her the Clarence Derwent Award, the Theatre World Award and the Donaldson Award (forerunner of the Tony Awards) presented to her by Laurette Taylor, for "Outstanding Achievement in The Theatre". From 1951 to 1953, Bel Geddes played 924 performances of the F. Hugh Herbert hit comedy The Moon Is Blue. In 1955, she created the role of Maggie "The Cat" in Elia Kazan's original Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and in 1961 created the title role in the Jean Kerr comedy Mary, Mary which became Broadway's longest-running show with over 1,500 performances. Both roles earned her Tony Award nominations. Other highlights include John Steinbeck's Burning Bright, Edward Albee's Everything in the Garden, and Silent Night, Lonely Night with Henry Fonda. She starred with Michael Redgrave in the Broadway production of The Sleeping Prince. In the film adaptation, retitled The Prince and the Showgirl, the roles were reprised by Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier.

In 1952, she was presented with the prestigious Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year award from America's oldest theater company, Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatricals; in 1993, having appeared in 15 Broadway productions, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame (located in the Gershwin Theatre in New York City), a distinction she shared with her father, stage and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes.

Hollywood

Bel Geddes in Elia Kazan's Panic in the Streets (1950)

Bel Geddes began her film career starring with Henry Fonda in The Long Night (1947), a remake of the 1939 French film Le jour se lève. "I went out to California awfully young", she said. "I remember Lillian Hellman and Elia Kazan telling me, 'Don't go, learn your craft.' But I loved films." The following year, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the George Stevens film I Remember Mama.

She played Richard Widmark's wife Nancy in Kazan's 1950 film noir Panic in the Streets. In 1958, Alfred Hitchcock cast her with James Stewart in Vertigo as the long-suffering bohemian, Midge. Bel Geddes also starred with Danny Kaye and Louis Armstrong in the screen musical The Five Pennies.

When an investigation from the House Un-American Activities Committee had Bel Geddes's name put on the Hollywood blacklist during the 1950s, it stalled her film career for a time, and she carried on with her acting on Broadway and an occasional part on television. Bel Geddes found new opportunity in television when she was cast in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "Lamb to the Slaughter", in which she played a housewife who killed her husband by bludgeoning him to death with a frozen leg of lamb, cooking the murder weapon, and then serving it to the investigating police. She appeared in series such as Playhouse 90, CBS Playhouse, Riverboat, Dr. Kildare, and Death Valley Days. In 1977, she starred in the highly acclaimed production of the Thornton Wilder classic Our Town with Hal Holbrook.

Dallas

Bel Geddes as Miss Ellie Ewing in the television series Dallas

In 1978, Bel Geddes was the first actor signed to star in Dallas. The role of the family matriarch, Miss Ellie Ewing, brought her renewed international recognition. She appeared in many episodes, in almost every season of the series, for a total of 276 episodes from 1978 to 1990 (she was absent from the 1984–85 and 1990–91 seasons) and was its only cast member to win the Emmy Award (Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress - Drama Series) and the Golden Globe (List of Golden Globe Awards: Television, Best Actress, Drama). In 1985, she also received Germany's Golden Camera Award.

Larry Hagman (who was only nine years junior to Bel Geddes), who played J. R. Ewing, told the Associated Press: "She was the rock of Dallas. She was just a really nice woman and a wonderful actress. She was kind of the glue that held the whole thing together." In a later interview for the website "Ultimate Dallas", Hagman said, "The reason I took the show, they said Barbara Bel Geddes is going to play your mother, and I said, 'Well, that's a touch of class, you know,' so of course I wanted to work with her."

In 1971, Bel Geddes underwent a radical mastectomy, which was an experience that she relived while playing Miss Ellie in the 1979–1980 season of Dallas. The performance garnered her the Emmy Award. She was also honored by First Lady Betty Ford for helping to raise breast cancer awareness.

On March 15, 1983, only days after she had completed filming for the 1982–1983 season, Bel Geddes narrowly avoided a heart attack when her doctor discovered a condition that required emergency quadruple bypass surgery. She subsequently missed the first 11 episodes of the 1983–1984 season and in a controversial decision, was replaced with actress Donna Reed for the 1984–1985 season. With her health improved, CBS-TV persuaded Lorimar Productions to return Bel Geddes to the role of Miss Ellie for the 1985–1986 season. As the only primetime television actor to relinquish and later regain a role, Bel Geddes continued to play the part through the penultimate season of Dallas in 1990.

Life after Dallas

Bel Geddes retired from acting in 1990 and settled in her homes in Northeast Harbor, Maine, and Putnam Valley, New York, where she continued to work as a fine artist. She was the author of two children's books, I Like to Be Me and So Do I, as well as the creator of a popular line of greeting cards. Looking back on her career, Bel Geddes told People: "They're always making me play well-bred ladies. I'm not very well bred, and I'm not much of a lady."

Death

Bel Geddes died of lung cancer on August 8, 2005, at her estate in Northeast Harbor, Maine, at the age of 82. Her ashes were scattered from a simple wooden boat into the harbor waters bordering her estate. At the revival of Dallas in 2012, Patrick Duffy (who played her youngest son, Bobby, in the original series) said: "Barbara is a big piece of our history, and it's important to me to honor her." "Through the whole first season, I don't think an episode goes by that Mama is not mentioned in reference to Southfork and the land", he said.

Credits

Broadway

Start of run	End of run	Title	Role	Notes
February 11, 1941	May 10, 1941	Out of the Frying Pan	Dottie Coburn
October 27, 1942	November 14, 1942	Little Darling	Cynthia Brown
January 13, 1943	January 16, 1943	Nine Girls	Alice
March 31, 1944	May 6, 1944	Mrs. January and Mr. X	Wilhelmina
September 26, 1945	November 16, 1946	Deep Are the Roots	Genevra Langdon	Winner – Donaldson Award, Theatre World Award, Clarence Derwent Award
October 18, 1950	October 28, 1950	Burning Bright	Mordeen
March 8, 1951	May 30, 1953	The Moon Is Blue	Patty O'Neill
November 17, 1954	December 4, 1954	The Living Room	Rose Pemberton
March 24, 1955	November 17, 1956	Cat on a Hot Tin Roof	Maggie	Nominated – Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play
November 1, 1956	December 22, 1956	The Sleeping Prince	Marchy
December 3, 1959	March 19, 1960	Silent Night, Lonely Night	Katherine
March 8, 1961	December 12, 1964	Mary, Mary	Mary McKellaway	Nominated – Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play
November 11, 1964	January 7, 1967	Luv	Ellen Manville
November 29, 1967	February 10, 1968	Everything in the Garden	Jenny
February 8, 1973	June 30, 1973	Finishing Touches	Katy Cooper

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1947	The Long Night	Jo Ann
1948	I Remember Mama	Katrin Hanson	Nominated – Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
	Blood on the Moon	Amy Lufton
1949	Caught	Leonora Eames
1950	Panic in the Streets	Nancy Reed
1951	Fourteen Hours	Virginia Foster
1958	Vertigo	Marjorie "Midge" Wood
1959	The Five Pennies	Willa Stutsman
1960	Five Branded Women	Marja
1961	By Love Possessed	Clarissa Winner
1971	Summertree	Ruth
	The Todd Killings	Mrs. Todd

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1950	Robert Montgomery Presents	Rebecca de Winter / Tracy Samantha Lord	2 episodes
	Pulitzer Prize Playhouse	Bethel Merriday	1 episode: "Bethel Merriday"
	The Nash Airflyte Theater	Molly Morgan	1 episode: "Molly Morgan"
1954	The Campbell Playhouse		1 episode: "XXXXX Isn't Everything"
1957	Schlitz Playhouse of Stars	Marcia	2 episodes
1957–1958	Studio One	Charlotte Lamb	2 episodes
1958	Playhouse 90	Sidney Cantrell	1 episode: "Rumors of Evening"
	Decision	Marcia	1 episode: "Fifty Beautiful Girls"
	The United States Steel Hour	Lily Barton	1 episode: "Mid-Summer"
	Alfred Hitchcock Presents	Lucia Clay	Season 3 Episode 24: "The Foghorn"
	Alfred Hitchcock Presents	Mary Maloney	Season 3 Episode 28: "Lamb to the Slaughter"
1959	Riverboat	Missy Belle	1 episode: "Payment in Full"
	Alfred Hitchcock Presents	Helen Brewster	Season 4 Episode 19: "The Morning of the Bride"
1960	Dow Hour of Great Mysteries		1 episode: "The Burning Court"
	Alfred Hitchcock Presents	Sybilla Meade	Season 6 Episode 10: "Sybilla"
1965	Dr. Kildare	Dr. Ruth Halliman	1 episode: "A Miracle for Margaret"
1968	CBS Playhouse	Doris Gray	1 episode: "Secrets"
1969	Journey to the Unknown	Inga Madison	1 episode: "The Madison Equation"
	Daniel Boone	Molly Malone	1 episode: "Sweet Molly Malone"
1976	Spencer's Pilots	Maggie	1 episode: "The Search"
1977	Our Town	Mrs. Webb	TV movie
1978–1990	Dallas	Miss Ellie Ewing Farlow	281 episodes Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series (1980) Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama (1982) Goldene Kamera for Best actress on television (1985) Soap Opera Digest Awards for Outstanding Actress in a Mature Role in a Prime Time Soap Opera (1984) Nominated – Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series (1979, 1981) Nominated – Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama (1980,1981) Nominated – Soap Opera Digest Awards for Outstanding Actress in a Mature Role on a Prime Time Serial (1986, 1988), (final appearance)

Further reading

• Barbara Bel Geddes: I Like to Be Me, Viking Juvenile (1963) – ISBN 0-670-39059-3
• Barbara Bel Geddes: So Do I, Price Stern Sloan Pub (1973) – ISBN 0-448-03420-4

External links

• Official Barbara Bel Geddes Website
• Barbara Bel Geddes at the Internet Broadway Database
• Barbara Bel Geddes at IMDb
• Barbara Bel Geddes at AllMovie
• Mediaweek obituary