Barbara Bel Geddes

Barbara Bel Geddes (October 31, 1922 – August 8, 2005) was an American actress, visual artist, and children's author born in New York City. The daughter of Helen Belle Schneider and the stage and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes, she grew up in a household shaped by the arts. Her parents had created their shared surname in 1916 by combining Helen's middle name with Norman's birth surname, Geddes. Bel Geddes had one sister, Joan, six years her elder. She married theatrical manager Carl Sawyer in 1944; the couple had a daughter, Susan, before divorcing in 1951. That same year she wed stage director Windsor Lewis, with whom she had a daughter, Betsy. When Lewis fell ill in 1967, Bel Geddes stepped back from her career to care for him; he died in 1972.

Her Broadway career extended from 1941 to 1973 and encompassed more than fifteen productions. She first came to wide attention in the 1946 production of Deep Are the Roots, a performance that earned her the Theatre World Award, the Clarence Derwent Award, and the Donaldson Award — a forerunner of the Tony Awards — presented to her by Laurette Taylor in recognition of outstanding achievement in the theatre. From 1951 to 1953 she appeared in 924 performances of F. Hugh Herbert's comedy The Moon Is Blue. In 1955 she originated the role of Maggie "The Cat" in Elia Kazan's Broadway production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and in 1961 she created the title role in Jean Kerr's comedy Mary, Mary, which accumulated more than 1,500 performances to become Broadway's longest-running show at that time. Both roles brought her Tony Award nominations. Additional Broadway credits include John Steinbeck's Burning Bright, Edward Albee's Everything in the Garden, Silent Night, Lonely Night opposite Henry Fonda, The Living Room, Out of the Frying Pan, and a starring role alongside Michael Redgrave in The Sleeping Prince — a production whose film adaptation, retitled The Prince and the Showgirl, featured Marilyn Monroe and Laurence Olivier in the same parts. In 1952, Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatricals named her its Woman of the Year. In 1993, Bel Geddes was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame, located in the Gershwin Theatre in New York City, an honor she shared with her father.

Her film career began with The Long Night (1947), in which she starred opposite Henry Fonda. The following year she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her work in George Stevens' I Remember Mama (1948). She appeared in Elia Kazan's 1950 film noir Panic in the Streets alongside Richard Widmark, and in 1958 Alfred Hitchcock cast her opposite James Stewart in Vertigo. She also appeared in the screen musical The Five Pennies with Danny Kaye and Louis Armstrong. During the 1950s, her film work was curtailed after her name was placed on the Hollywood blacklist following scrutiny by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and she redirected her energies toward Broadway and television. On the small screen she appeared in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "Lamb to the Slaughter," as well as in series such as Playhouse 90, CBS Playhouse, Riverboat, Dr. Kildare, and Death Valley Days. In 1977 she starred in a production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town with Hal Holbrook.

In 1978, Bel Geddes became the first actor signed for the television series Dallas, in which she played family matriarch Miss Ellie Ewing across 276 episodes from 1978 to 1990. The role brought her renewed international recognition and made her the only cast member of the series to win both a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and a Golden Globe Award. Her Emmy-winning performance came during the 1979–1980 season, in which her character's experience with breast cancer mirrored Bel Geddes's own radical mastectomy in 1971; she was subsequently honored by First Lady Betty Ford for contributing to breast cancer awareness. In March 1983, days after completing filming for that season, she required emergency quadruple bypass surgery and missed the first eleven episodes of the following season. She was replaced by actress Donna Reed for the 1984–1985 season, but returned to the role beginning with the 1985–1986 season after CBS persuaded Lorimar Productions to reinstate her. Donna Reed later sued for breach of contract and settled out of court for more than one million dollars. Bel Geddes continued as Miss Ellie through the penultimate season of Dallas in 1990, becoming the only primetime television actor to relinquish and subsequently reclaim a role. In 1985 she also received Germany's Golden Camera Award.

Bel Geddes retired from acting in 1990 and divided her time between homes in Northeast Harbor, Maine, and Putnam Valley, New York, where she worked as a fine artist. She authored two children's books, I Like to Be Me and So Do I, and created a line of greeting cards. She died of lung cancer on August 8, 2005, in Northeast Harbor, Maine, at the age of 82.