Dallas matriarch Miss Ellie Ewing succumbs to lung cancer at 82

BARBARA Bel Geddes, the winsome actress who rose to stage and movie stardom but reached her greatest fame as Miss Ellie Ewing in the long-running TV series Dallas, has died. She was 82.

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

She was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actress for the 1948 drama I Remember Mama, and was the original Maggie the Cat on Broadway in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

But she was best known as the matriarch of the rambunctious Ewing oil family in Dallas, which hurtled to the top of the ratings. Bel Geddes won an Emmy in 1980 as best lead actress in a drama series and remains the only night-time soap star in the US to be so honoured.

“She was the rock of Dallas,” said Larry Hagman, who played JR Ewing. “She was just a really nice woman and a wonderful actress. She was kind of the glue that held the whole thing together.”

In her film career, Bel Geddes worked with great film-makers such as Elia Kazan (Panic in the Streets) and Alfred Hitchcock (Vertigo). She also co-starred with Danny Kaye in The Five Pennies.

Born in New York City on October 31, 1922, Bel Geddes was the daughter of renowned industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes.

Early in her stage career, she married electrical engineer Carl Schreuer, and they had a daughter, Susan. They divorced in 1951 and she married Windsor Lewis, with whom she also had a daughter, Betsy. Lewis died in 1972 after a long battle with cancer.