Barbara Bel Geddes (October 31, 1922 – August 8, 2005) was an American stage and screen actress, artist, and children's author whose career spanned almost 5 decades.

In 1952, she was presented with the prestigious Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year award from America's oldest theater company, Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatricals; in 1993, having appeared in 15 Broadway productions, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame (located in the Gershwin Theatre in New York City), a distinction she shared with her father, stage and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes.

When an investigation from the House Un-American Activities Committee had Bel Geddes's name put on the Hollywood blacklist during the 1950s, it stalled her film career for a time, and she carried on with her acting on Broadway and an occasional part on television.

Larry Hagman (who was only nine years junior to Bel Geddes), who played J. R. Ewing, told the Associated Press: "She was the rock of Dallas.

In a later interview for the website "Ultimate Dallas", Hagman said, "The reason I took the show, they said Barbara Bel Geddes is going to play your mother, and I said, 'Well, that's a touch of class, you know,' so of course I wanted to work with her."

In 1971, Bel Geddes underwent a radical mastectomy, which was an experience that she relived while playing Miss Ellie in the 1979–1980 season of Dallas.

On March 15, 1983, only days after she had completed filming for the 1982–1983 season, Bel Geddes narrowly avoided a heart attack when her doctor discovered a condition that required emergency quadruple bypass surgery.

With her health improved, CBS-TV persuaded Lorimar Productions to return Bel Geddes to the role of Miss Ellie for the 1985–1986 season.

As the only primetime television actor to relinquish and later regain a role, Bel Geddes continued to play the part through the penultimate season of Dallas in 1990.

Bel Geddes retired from acting in 1990 and settled in her homes in Northeast Harbor, Maine, and Putnam Valley, New York, where she continued to work as a fine artist.

At the revival of Dallas in 2012, Patrick Duffy (who played her youngest son, Bobby, in the original series) said: "Barbara is a big piece of our history, and it's important to me to honor her."