Dallas Actors Wonderful Barbara Bel Geddes

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"I told her to get on the bed and beg for sex, for love, for affirmation, for some attention like it was candy or a toy. The unhinged and the desperate become childlike, and she became childlike, and she begged from the empty, dry bed."--Elia Kazan on Barbara Bel Geddes as Maggie the Cat in "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof"/Interview with James Grissom

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from Follies of God

Barbara Bel Geddes on Miss Ellie in DALLAS. "
They had me sifting flour and weeping so damned much. I kept fighting to make her tougher, and they listened to me." Bel Geddes had undergone a radical mastectomy in 1971, and she had known many women who had been affected by breast cancer. "I said to them, Look, let's make this a real woman, and they gave me that story. It was my best work on the show." For that particular story arc, Bel Geddes won the Emmy Award.
 

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and another re James Woods

Barbara Bel Geddes and James Woods in Jean Kerr's FINISHING TOUCHES, 1973. "James was so good, so intense even then. I have loved watching him become a truly great actor."

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I have to be honest and say "SEXY" is not an adjective i would use to describe Gene Wilder! :sorry:

From Follies of God

Barbara Bel Geddes in George Stevens' I REMEMBER MAMA, for which she received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress. "That was such a charmed set," she told me. "Stevens was so controlling, and he wanted love on that set, so it was really lovely to be there."

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Follies of God

Barbara Bel Geddes in "Lamb to the Slaughter," a classic episode of ALFRED HITCHOCK PRESENTS. 1958. Based on a Roald Dahl short story that had been rejected by The New Yorker. "He [Hitchock] liked me. He said I was easy. I didn't bring any problems to the set. I just came to work, to laugh. I thought he was adorable. Funny, sly, brilliant."

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from Follies of God

Barbara Bel Geddes in George Stevens' I REMEMBER MAMA, for which she received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress. "That was such a charmed set," she told me. "Stevens was so controlling, and he wanted love on that set, so it was really lovely to be there."

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"I don't think of myself as sexual--I mean, in appearance. Everyone is sexual. But [Elia] Kazan wanted me to be confident in my sexuality; to flaunt it. I just couldn't do it. So he told me--he's so damned smart--to think of Tennessee's words as jewels. Huge, gorgeous, priceless jewels. My body was dripping with jewels, and it blinded anyone who might look at me. The jewels made some jealous; others dazzled. But you know, Brick can't make love to jewels, so I'm swirling, and the jewels are making me very heavy, and I'm just desperate. I'm literally jumpy. And that came across--to Kazan, at least--as sexually confident. I was perpetually on offer."--Barbara Bel Geddes on the experience of playing Maggie in Tennessee Williams' CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF/Interview with James Grissom #FolliesOfGod

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"Freedom. I was given freedom with that part. Total freedom. I was told to be wanton and fearless. Tennessee noticed how embarrassed I was one day at lunch, when a string of pasta fell onto my chin. He told me to just eat my food--no one was watching--and to take that ravenous spirit to Maggie. Maggie simply has to get what she needs, and if it means straddling a drunken man who hates her, she'll do it. And she wins. [Elia] Kazan and Tennessee both told me that Maggie wins. It's a Pyrrhic victory, but she wins. And so I was wanton."--Barbara Bel Geddes on her role as Maggie the Cat in Tennessee Williams' CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, which opened on March 24, 1955/Interview with James Grissom #FolliesOfGod

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K

Karin Schill

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Barbara Fan said:
from Follies of God

Barbara Bel Geddes in George Stevens' I REMEMBER MAMA, for which she received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress. "That was such a charmed set," she told me. "Stevens was so controlling, and he wanted love on that set, so it was really lovely to be there."

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She looked so young in this movie. I think she was in her early 20s but she really looked like a school girl in it. :)
It is possible it was the long hair that made her look younger. Do you know if it was her real hair or a hair extention?
 
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Karin Schill said:
She looked so young in this movie. I think she was in her early 20s but she really looked like a school girl in it. :)
It is possible it was the long hair that made her look younger. Do you know if it was her real hair or a hair extention?
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I have never seen photos off her "off screen" in late 1940s with long hair, the photos from her own personal scrapbooks (now in my cupboard) taken at that time show thick shoulder length hair and I always thought that it was a wig/extensions to make it waist length

I agree re looking young, I remember the 1st time i saw this film in ?1982 I kept thinking Gosh, she had a 3 year old daughter in real life!! EEK!
 
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Karin Schill

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Thanks for explaining BF. :)

Yikes I'd never made the connection that she was already a mother herself when she filmed this. Then again some people do have babies relatively early in life and it was more common before that women had babies in their 20s than today.
 
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From an article re births

Born: To Barbara Bel Geddes Schreuer, 22, pretty actress daughter of future-gazing Designer Norman Bel Geddes; and Carl Schreuer, 26, marine electrical engineer: their first child, a girl; in Manhattan. Name: Susan. Weight: 7 Ibs.

PS
Also do you know that Susan was born on January 25th 1945, the day after their first wedding anniversary. The couple lived in a hotel until just before Susan was born, but they decided it was no place to raise a child and moved to an apartment in the 80s. (NY)
 
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From Follies of God

"I used hunger a lot as an emotion. Then madness, anger. We all become babies, infants, when we are crying out for what we want or need, and Maggie is being denied on all fronts: Love; sex; respect; standing; a voice. She is forever on the side, begging for entry. So it wasn't pleasant, even if it was real. It was therapeutic, though, because during that run, I tended to get what I wanted, because I refused to be as hungry as Maggie."--Barbara Bel Geddes on playing Maggie the Cat in Tennessee Williams's "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," in 1955 (From interview with James Grissom

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and another

"She best understood hunger and desire and the pain of being rejected--sexually, socially. Frighteningly bright, eager. Lovely Barbara."--Elia Kazan on Barbara Bel Geddes and why he cast her as Maggie the Cat in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"/Interview with James Grissom/

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