Barbara Bel Geddes

From Alfred Hitchcock Wiki

born: 31/Oct/1922 (New York, USA)
died: 08/Aug/2005 (Northeast Harbor, Maine, USA) - lung cancer

Lobby card (11"x14") for "Vertigo".

[edit] Biography

Barbara Bel Geddes was an Oscar-nominated American actress, best known for her role on the hit CBS drama, "Dallas", as its strong and reasoned matriarch, Miss Ellie Ewing.

Bel Geddes began her career as a stage actress at the age of eighteen, going on to star in fifteen major Broadway productions. Her most notable stage performances included the role of Maggie "The Cat" in Elia Kazan's original production of Tennessee Williams "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" on Broadway in 1956, and the title role in the long-running Jean Kerr comedy "Mary, Mary" in 1961, both of which earned her Tony Award nominations. Other highlights include "The Moon Is Blue," John Steinbeck's "Burning Bright" Edward Albee's "Everything In The Garden" and "Silent Night, Lonely Night" with Henry Fonda.

Her film career began opposite Henry Fonda in 1947's "The Long Night". She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for "I Remember Mama" (1948). A House Unamerican Activities Committee investigation stalled her film career for a short time. She found new opportunity in television when Alfred Hitchcock cast her in four episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", including "Lamb to the Slaughter", the seminal episode in which she plays a housewife who kills her husband by bludgeoning him to death with a leg of lamb, cooking the murder weapon and serving it to the investigating police; Mr. Hitchcock cast her again with James Stewart in his classic film "Vertigo" (1958). Bel Geddes also starred with Danny Kaye and jazz great Louis Armstrong in the screen musical "The Five Pennies".

(Wikipedia)