{"id":3509,"date":"2005-08-12T12:12:23","date_gmt":"2005-08-12T16:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3509"},"modified":"2022-10-09T19:14:38","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T23:14:38","slug":"rip-barbara-bel-geddes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=3509","title":{"rendered":"R.I.P. Barbara Bel Geddes"},"content":{"rendered":"

A marvelous actress with a long long LONG career has just died. Barbara Bel Geddes passed away.<\/a> Look at her face in those photos. Isn’t it a nice face? She got more attractive as she got older – with those smile lines. A twinkly face, a smart face. I love the quote in the obituary: “”They’re always making me play well-bred ladies. I’m not very well bred, and I’m not much of a lady.”<\/p>\n

She was very loved by some of the biggest directors of her day: Hitchcock, Elia Kazan. She also had a major stage career (she was much more successful on Broadway than she ever was in Hollywood – she was the original Maggie the Cat). And, very rare for actresses (more so than for actors) – she kept working after her youth was gone. Her biggest success (in fact, probably the most money she ever made) was when she was on Dallas<\/i> – which was, of course, a huge cash cow. Just goes to show you: you can never give up. You are never “done”. Acting is not just for the young and beautiful. Barbara Bel Geddes just kept going.<\/p>\n

My personal favorite of her performances is Midge in Vertigo<\/i> – which I raved about here.<\/a> She’s just so LOVable in that part. I want her to be my friend. She plays it perfectly: the down to earth woman, the friend of Jimmy Stewart … but you know … you just know … that in her deepest heart, she is in love with him. It will not work out for her. She must accept his friendship. But … even though there are no LINES to support this … Barbara Bel Geddes lets us know: “This is the man for me.” Her love for him is not fickle, or passionate, or adolescent. If she can’t have him, then probably she will not be able to have anybody. She’s a one-man woman. Again though: there are NO LINES that say any of this. It’s all in Barbara Bel Geddes’ face. But it’s subtle. She’s so good, she never hits you over the head with it. For the most part, she is just the good friend, the one who listens to him, the one who mixes him a drink … who doesn’t judge him … who is there for him. Midge: a marvelous character. I fall in love with her every time I see that movie.<\/p>\n

Rest in peace, Barbara Bel Geddes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A marvelous actress with a long long LONG career has just died. Barbara Bel Geddes passed away. Look at her face in those photos. Isn’t it a nice face? She got more attractive as she got older – with those … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,23],"tags":[319,1632,1593,116,1327],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3509"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3509"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178628,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3509\/revisions\/178628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}