News for
I Remember Mama (1948) More at IMDbPro »

3 articles from 2005

11 August 2005 | Studio Briefing - Film News | See recent Studio Briefing - Film News news »

Award-winning actress Barbara Bel Geddes, best known for her role as Miss Ellie on Dallas from 1978-89 (she dropped out of the series in 1984 because of health problems but returned the following year), has died of lung cancer in Northeast Harbor, Maine at age 82. Bel Geddes received three Emmy nominations and one win during the Dallas run. She had a distinguished career on Broadway and films in the late '40s and received a best-supporting-actress Oscar nomination for I Remember Mama in 1949. Her career was interrupted for seven years in 1951, however, when she was blacklisted after director Elia Kazan, in congressonal testimony, named her as a fellow member of the Communist Party. »

Permalink | Report a problem

11 August 2005 | WENN | See recent WENN news »

Former Dallas star Barbara Bel Geddes has died of lung cancer. She was 82. The veteran actress, who played matriarch Miss Ellie Ewing on the classic soap, passed away at her home in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on Monday. Larry Hagman, who played her son JR Ewing on Dallas, says, "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." Though best remembered for her TV work, she was also Oscar nominated for her role as the narrator-daughter in 1948's I Remember Mama and was Tennessee Williams' original sizzler, Maggie The Cat, in Broadway's Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. Geddes, who also starred in Alfred Hitchcock's classic Vertigo, retired from acting to take care of her husband, Windsor Lewis, after he fell ill with cancer in 1966. After he died in 1972, cash-strapped Bel Geddes accepted a role from Dallas producers - even though she considered TV a step down from Oscar and Tony-caliber roles. She won an Emmy for her role in 1980 - and she remains the only night-time soap winner to be honored in an acting category. Bel Geddes was a heavy smoker, according to reports. Hagman says he had encouraged Bel Geddes to give up the smoking habit, but it was doctors who got her to quit after her heart attack. She is survived by a daughter, Betsy. »

Permalink | Report a problem

10 August 2005 | WENN | See recent WENN news »

Barbara Bel Geddes, the actress of stage, screen and television known to most as the matriarch Miss Ellie on the TV series Dallas, died Monday of lung cancer; she was 82. The Emmy award-winning actress passed away at her home in Northeast Harbor, Maine, where she had spent the past years away from the limelight. No further information other than the date and cause of death was given out, per her family's request. The daughter of theatrical and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes, the actress was born and raised in New York, with theater in her blood. She made her stage debut at 18 and quickly established herself on Broadway, winning a New York Drama Critics Award at 23 for Deep Are the Roots. Just a year later, in 1946, she signed a Hollywood contract, a deal with RKO that was unusual in that it allowed her to make just one film a year. Though her debut movie, The Long Night opposite Henry Fonda, was less than well-received, she had a hit with her second, I Remember Mama, for which she received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Her nascent Hollywood career was short lived, however, thanks in part to Howard Hughes buying RKO and not considering her "sexy enough," and she successfully returned to the stage in 1950. Five years later she originated the role of Maggie the Cat in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (grabbing a Tony nomination), and in 1958 returned to film in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, playing Midge, the lingerie-designing galpal of James Stewart. Though she appeared in a handful of films after Vertigo, Bel Geddes returned to the stage again, her most notable role in 1961's Mary, Mary, a comedy that ran for 1,500 performances and won her a second Tony nomination. The actress retired in the late 60s to care for her second husband, Windsor Lewis, after he was diagnosed with cancer, until his death in 1972. In 1978, Bel Geddes was "flat broke" (her own term) when she took on the role of Miss Ellie in the CBS drama Dallas. The show became an instant success, and Bel Geddes won an Emmy in 1980, the only cast member to do so; a heart attack in 1984 forced the actress to leave the show for six months (she was replaced by Donna Reed), but she returned and stayed until the show's end in 1990. After the end of Dallas, however, Bel Geddes left acting entirely, and did not return for either the two Dallas reunion TV movies or last year's reunion special. --Prepared by IMDb staff »

Permalink | Report a problem

3 articles from 2005