Dallas' Miss Ellie dies

Aug 11 2005 By The Evening Chronicle

Barbara Bel Geddes, who played Miss Ellie Ewing in the hit TV series Dallas, has died aged 82.

The actress was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actress for the 1948 drama, I Remember Mama, and was the original Maggie, on Broadway, in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.

But it was Dallas in which she made her name. The part came up late in her career - after she had retired to take care of her husband who had cancer.

Bel Geddes was broke when she took the role in 1978. Little did she know she would become epitomised as the matriarch of a Texas oil family.

In March 1984, she suffered a major heart attack and Miss Ellie was played by Donna Reed for six months.

Bel Geddes returned to Dallas and stayed until 1990, a year before US network CBS cancelled the show.

Larry Hagman, who played JR Ewing on the programme, described her as the rock of Dallas.

The actress, a long-time smoker, died of lung cancer at her home in Northeast Harbour, Maine, on Monday.