Actress Barbara Bel Geddes, best known for playing matriarch Miss Ellie in the TV series Dallas, has died at the age of 82.
The actress, a long-time smoker, died of lung cancer at her home in Northeast Harbour, Maine, on Monday.
Larry Hagman
She was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actress for the 1948 drama I Remember Mamaand was the original Maggie the Cat on Broadway in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.
But it was Dallasin which she made her name. The part came up late in her career - after she had retired to take care of her husband who had cancer.
Bel Geddes was "flat broke" when she took the role in 1978, and little did she know she would become epitomised as the matriarch of a Texas oil family.
In March 1984, she suffered a major heart attack and Miss Ellie was played by Donna Reed for six months.
Bel Geddes returned to Dallasand stayed until 1990, a year before US network CBS cancelled the show.
Larry Hagman, who played JR Ewing on the programme, described her as the "rock" of Dallas."She was just a really nice woman and a wonderful actress," he said. "She was kind of the glue that held the whole thing together."