Miss Ellie....
Barbara Bel Geddes, Miss Ellie, is gone. Barbara died Monday at the age of 82. Miss Ellie was the only consistantly good hearted soul on "Dallas", only losing her cool when one of her family members got completely out of control...which come to think of it was at least once an episode.
Dallas was a smarmy soap opera and now days I would probably not watch something of it's ilk. But when it originally aired I was a resident of Dallas [the city not the show] and the filming occured at many locales I was very familiar with including the First International Building which was where the Ewing Oil empire was based. I was based there too. In fact the real estate company that I worked for leased the building and so, many times, we could get great viewing opportunities of the filming when the general public was excluded. I don't think I ever saw Miss Ellie [she wasn't usually invited to the Ewing offices!] but I did see J.R. [Larry Hagman] and Bobby [Patrick Duffy] and Cliff Barnes [Ken Kercheval] on many occasions when they were filming street scenes in front of the building.
I once ran into Larry Hagman at a country and western bar on the Greenville Ave. strip. The name of the bar escapes me though I remember it was at the corner of Greenville and Lovers Lane. Larry was in rare form making the rounds of the tables handing out "J.R. Bucks", fake one dollar bills with his picture in place of Washington's. Fun times though I, and I think Larry, have given up that wilder side of life. It's interesting to catch "Dallas" reruns sometimes today and remember my life in Big D in the early 80's. Miss Ellie was a part of that and Barbara Bel Geddes seemed like such a nice woman among a pack of thieves. Thanks for the memories.
Barbara Bel Geddes, Miss Ellie, is gone. Barbara died Monday at the age of 82. Miss Ellie was the only consistantly good hearted soul on "Dallas", only losing her cool when one of her family members got completely out of control...which come to think of it was at least once an episode.
Dallas was a smarmy soap opera and now days I would probably not watch something of it's ilk. But when it originally aired I was a resident of Dallas [the city not the show] and the filming occured at many locales I was very familiar with including the First International Building which was where the Ewing Oil empire was based. I was based there too. In fact the real estate company that I worked for leased the building and so, many times, we could get great viewing opportunities of the filming when the general public was excluded. I don't think I ever saw Miss Ellie [she wasn't usually invited to the Ewing offices!] but I did see J.R. [Larry Hagman] and Bobby [Patrick Duffy] and Cliff Barnes [Ken Kercheval] on many occasions when they were filming street scenes in front of the building.
I once ran into Larry Hagman at a country and western bar on the Greenville Ave. strip. The name of the bar escapes me though I remember it was at the corner of Greenville and Lovers Lane. Larry was in rare form making the rounds of the tables handing out "J.R. Bucks", fake one dollar bills with his picture in place of Washington's. Fun times though I, and I think Larry, have given up that wilder side of life. It's interesting to catch "Dallas" reruns sometimes today and remember my life in Big D in the early 80's. Miss Ellie was a part of that and Barbara Bel Geddes seemed like such a nice woman among a pack of thieves. Thanks for the memories.
