Breakfast at Tiffany's – Because I Do Not Know

Miss Ellie Smokes Herself to Death

Barbara Bel Geddes, who played the Ewing family matriarch on "Dallas," has died. Of course, it was lung cancer. And, of course, she was a smoker -- which the article references in the SECOND paragraph. It's not until several paragraphs later that she quit 20 years before her death.

In March 1984, Bel Geddes was stricken with a major heart attack. Miss Ellie was played by Donna Reed for six months, then Bel Geddes returned to "Dallas," remaining until 1990, a year before CBS canceled the show.
Hagman said he had encouraged Bel Geddes to give up the smoking habit, but it was doctors who got her to quit after the heart attack, he said. He recalled the makeup room on the "Dallas" set as being so filled with her cigarette smoke that he would ask to be made up in his dressing room.

Of the lung cancer deaths of Peter Jennings and Bel Geddes, Hagman said: "I hope it's a wake-up call to a lot of people."

That's right, Larry, just like your chronic alcoholism meant you needed a liver transplant ... a liver that could have gone to some other sick person if you hadn't been a selfish drunk.

UPDATE: On a related note, 1 in 5 women who have lung cancer never smoked. Not that it matters, well, at least not to some people ...

Doctors who treat the disease, like Dr. Bruce Johnson of Dana-Farber Cancer Center in Boston, bristle at the notion of "innocent" and "not so innocent" victims.

"People who smoke don't deserve to get lung cancer, and people have worked very hard to quit," he said.

Not according to the media, who never fail to point out the "deserved" deaths.

7 comments Jake McCafferty last posted at 7:17 PM
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7 Comments:

What is it with lung cancer lately-first Peter Jennings,then Dana Reeve(as if that poor woman hasn't gone thru enough)and now Miss Ellie?

Sad,sad,sad. Oh and yes,Larry Hagman is a douche bag drunk,I agree.

By lady t, at 7:40 PM

LOL, I never liked Larry Hagman. He always seemed like such a jerk. Now I can erase seemed from that sentence.

As for lung cancer, it's killed people for years. I wouldn't encourage anyone to smoke. I also wouldn't encourage anyone to eat a greasy cheeseburger and fries every day. But if you choose to do so, that's your business. And I'm not going to stand over your coffin, shake my head and say, "You would have lived three more years if you'd just put down the McDonald's."

Life is short. Do what you want.

By Jake McCafferty, at 7:51 PM

So are you saying that she was probably the real culprit behind that fire at South Fork Ranch?

Really, how can we doubt the intelligence of a woman smart enough to avoid those reunion movies? (She's Dallas' Tina Louise in that regard.)

And for heaven's sake, she, like Peter Jennings, had stopped smoking years ago and lived to be freakin' 82!!!!

By Jay Six, at 1:39 PM

Miss Ellie did it in the study with the candlestick. (I'm just not sure what she did.)

That's what I'm saying, Jay. If you quit and it still kills you 20 years later, what's the point of quitting?

By Jake McCafferty, at 5:12 PM

Miss Ellie. Candlestick. There's an image that will only be suppressed if I drink through my liver, Larry Hagman-style.

By Jay Six, at 12:55 PM

Are you secretly the grim reaper just going around offing the celebs one at a time with lung cancer?

By Matt S., at 3:15 PM

Matt S. ... shhhh or you're next.

By Jake McCafferty, at 7:16 PM