Barbara Bel Geddes Net Worth

Barbara Bel Geddes's Quotes

• I'm not very well-bred and I'm not much of a lady.
• I'm a dull girl, I guess, because I like to do mundane things. I like to putter things around the house, draw, raise geraniums and I can't let an avocado pit go into the garbage. I have to try to make it grow into a tree.
• [on the Mastectomy storyline]: When the producer asked me if I would mind having Ellie discover a malignant lump on her breast, I thought, 'No, this time, I won't mind.'
• [In 1979]: You learn to live with it. That's how I like to help, if I can, by talking about it - to say there's hope and not to give up. You do get well. You are able to laugh about it and make jokes about it.
• [In 1986]: That quote got under my skin. If you fret about tomorrow so much that you dare not live today, then, how wise are you?

Interesting Facts about Barbara Bel Geddes

1. She played Maggie the Cat in the original Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Elizabeth Taylor garnered the role in the Hollywood film version, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958).
2. Mother of Susan and Betsy. Grandmother of Samantha, Hannah, Joshua, Maggie, and Oliver.
3. Daughter of stage designer/art director Norman Bel Geddes and Helen Belle Sneider Geddes. Stepdaughter of theatrical costumer designer Edith Lutyens-Bel Geddes.
4. At age 16 she was kicked out of the fancy Putney Finishing School in New England for being a disruptive influence.
5. Designed stationery for Caspari and Crane in her retirement years.
6. Spent her retirement years in Northeast Harbor, Maine, up until her death.
7. Was operated on for breast cancer in 1971-72 and relived the experience in Dallas (1978) when Miss Ellie underwent a mastectomy.
8. She played the showgirl in The Sleeping Prince on Broadway. Marilyn Monroe garnered the role in the Hollywood film version, The Prince and the Showgirl (1957).
9. She played the lead in Mary, Mary on Broadway. Debbie Reynolds garnered the role in the Hollywood film version, Mary, Mary (1963).
10. Was twice nominated for Broadway's best dramatic actress Tony Award, in 1956 for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and in 1961 for Mary, Mary.
11. A longtime smoker, she was forced to quit by her doctors after her heart attack in March 1984.
12. The father-in-law of her Dallas (1978) co-star Patrick Duffy worked with her father Norman Bel Geddes long before Duffy's future wife saw her in a Broadway play.
13. Was the first and only choice for the role of Miss Ellie Ewing on Dallas (1978).
14. Prior to her retirement, she was the best-selling author of 2 children's books.
15. Best remembered by the public for her starring role as Miss Ellie Ewing Farlow on Dallas (1978).
16. Made her Broadway debut when she was 18.
17. She attended Putney School, a private school in Putney, Vermont.
18. Like her Dallas (1978) co-star Larry Hagman, Bel Geddes was also a heavy smoker for years, which eventually led to her heart attack decades before being diagnosed with lung cancer, which claimed her life.
19. She did not appear in either of two Dallas (1978) reunion movies or in Dallas Reunion: Return to Southfork (2004), which was made the year before her death.
20. Left Dallas (1978) at the end of the seventh season owing to health problems. She came back at the beginning of the ninth season, working until she retired from acting in 1990.