Barbara Bel Geddes: Encyclopedia - Barbara Bel Geddes

Barbara Bel Geddes

Barbara Bel Geddes (October 31, 1922 – August 8, 2005) was an American actress. She was born in New York City, New York, USA.

Bel Geddes, the daughter of Helen Belle Sneider and industrial architect Norman Bel Geddes, began as a stage actress at the age of 18. In 1952, she received the prestigious Woman of the Year Award by Hasty Pudding Theatricals USA, America's oldest theater company. Her most notable stage performances were originating the role of Maggie in Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof on Broadway in 1956, and her performance in Jean Kerr's comedy Mary, Mary in 1961, both of which earned her Tony Award nominations.

Her film career began opposite Henry Fonda with 1947's The Long Night. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for I Remember Mama (1948). However, ill health and a House Unamerican Activities Committee investigation essentially ended her film career for a long while. Her career restarted when Alfred Hitchcock cast her in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (including "Lamb to the Slaughter," [from a story by Roald Dahl] the seminal episode when she plays a housewife who kills her husband by bludgeoning him with a leg of lamb, then feeds the instrument of death to the investigating cops), as well as an important role in the movie Vertigo (1958) as James Stewart's ex-girlfriend.

She married Carl Schreuer in 1944, and they had a daughter, Susan. She divorced in 1951 and married film director Windsor Lewis later that year. Bel Geddes retired from film in 1966 to care for her then ailing husband, who died of cancer in 1972. By 1978 her savings were nearly depleted. She tested for the role of middle-aged family matriarch Eleanor "Miss Ellie" Southworth Ewing Farlow on CBS's new prime time soap opera, Dallas, and landed the role that would make her most well-known among modern-day audiences. She played on the series from 1978 to 1990 and remains the only night-time soap opera actress to win an Emmy award (in 1980) for best lead actress in a drama series. When she underwent heart surgery after suffering a heart attack in March 1984, Donna Reed replaced her for the 1984-1985 season.

She is also the author of two children's books, I Like to Be Me (1963) and So Do I (1972).

Barbara Bel Geddes died of lung cancer at her home in Northeast Harbor, Maine on August 8, 2005.

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