Most people will remember her for role as the Ewing matriarch on the television series Dallas. I was too young to appreciate Dallas when it was on the air, and when I got older I discovered old movies instead. Among them is the Hitchcock classic Vertigo.
Bel Geddes played Midge, the girl we were all rooting for, the girl who was left to pick up the pieces when Scotty fell apart. She was sophisticated, intelligent and safe. She loved Scotty and Scotty fell in love with another woman, twice, the same woman in disguise, no less. It could've been a soap opera plot but in Hitchcock's hands it was far more subtle, more sophisticated.
Bel Geddes was perfect for the part, just as Suzanne Pleshette was as the other woman in The Birds. But Bel Geddes' role was a little more innocent and a little more vulnerable.
Bel Geddes died Wednesday of lung cancer at age 82.
