As per this link, Barbara Bel Geddes has died.
She was best known for her role as Miss Ellie on Dallas, but she had a long and successful career.
I remember her best from Vertigo as James Stewart’s artist girlfriend.
Wow! I remember her from “Vertigo” too, but had no idea she created the role of Maggie the cat. Prim, proper, stalwart Miss Ellie was once as frisky as “a cat on a hot tin roof.” Rowr.
It’s a mark of a great actress that she could take a dull, thankless, backseat role like “Miss Ellie” on Dallas and turn it into an iconic part.
So much so that there was huge fan protest when she was replaced with the original TV mom, Donna Reed. They had to fire Donna and bring Bel Geddes back.
Bel Geddes was sidelined by a heart attack and had to be replaced temporarily.
I did not remember that she was ill. Regardless, the outcry was enormous, from what I remember.
Every time I watch Vertigo I yell at J. Stewart to forget Kim Novak, and go for BBG. She’s hot and she’s got the hots for you already, you dummy. But noooo…
Let’s not forget that she was also the wronged wife who killed her husband with a frozen leg of lamb, then served it to the policemen in Alfred Hitchcock Presents, as well as the daughter of one of the world’s great theater architects.
I really liked her when she was on some talk show with the rest of the cast- I think Dinah Shore. They were all asked “why did you take this role?” and each gave some long spiel on “the dynamic of the family” or “the multilayering of good and bad in the personality” and Barbara answered “I was flat broke, had two kids in college and needed a job!” The role should have fixed that problem as IIRC she was paid millions to reprise the role after Donna Reed didn’t work out. (You just couldn’t imagine Donna Reed walking around through a stable in jeans without her makeup.)
When J.R. was shot they filmed several scenes of the assailant, one of them Miss Ellie, so that not even the cast would know who did it. Barbara at the time said something like “If they reveal that Miss Ellie shot her own son I’d leave the show” and when asked if she felt that strongly about it said “No… my character would go to jail.”