Bel Geddes, Barbara

Bel Geddes, Barbara (1922–2005), actress. She was born in New York, the daughter of scenic designer Norman Bel Geddes, and made her debut as a walk‐on in summer stock in 1940. The next year she came to Broadway as Dottie Coburn, a fledgling actress, in Out of the Frying Pan, then toured for the USO as the over‐imaginative Judy in Junior Miss. After appearing in several failures, Bel Geddes began to earn attention as Cynthia Brown, the daughter who encourages her father to have an affair, in Little Darling (1942), followed by her coed‐turned‐detective Alice, in Nine Girls (1943) and Wilhelmina in Mrs. January and Mr. X (1944). She first won important recognition as Genevra Langdon, the sympathetic younger daughter, in Deep Are the Roots (1945), then scored a major success as the naive actress Patty O'Neill in The Moon Is Blue (1951). Turning again to more serious roles, she portrayed the suicidal Rose Pemberton in The Living Room (1954) and Maggie, the unloved wife, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955). Bel Geddes shone as the American chorine Mary in The Sleeping Prince (1956) and the lonely Katherine Johnson in Silent Night, Lonely Night (1959), but her biggest hit came as the contrary heroine of Mary, Mary (1961). Her final roles were the bored housewife‐turned‐prostitute in Everything in the Garden (1967) and the loyal wife Katy Cooper in Finishing Touches (1973) before concentrating on television. A strapping blonde, Bel Geddes's performance in Deep Are the Roots was praised by Lewis Nichols in the Times as having “grace and tenderness and an honesty which breathes life into the part,” while Brooks Atkinson later wrote in the same paper that her acting in Mary, Mary had “an agreeably light touch; her quirk of pausing for quick intakes of breath in the midst of phrases, whether a habit or not, seems felicitous.”