Replacing Miss Ellie
Even though she was a fine actress, Donna Reed was not a good fit as Miss Ellie. Given that they though Barbara was gone for good, which 80s actress would have been a better replacement?
shareAlthough the usual story that Barbara "quit" and then got "jealous" seeing another actress in her role was made up to make the executives look innocent in the fiasco.
They actually fired Barbara and then quietly went crawling back and asked her to come back.
That said, Nancy Olson was suggested by her friend Howard Keel, and in fact she played a similar matriarch in "Paper Dolls" in 1984, at exactly the same time Donna Reed did DALLAS.
Olson was William Holden's girlfriend in SUNSET BLVD. She had a vaguely similar quality to BBG.
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LBJ's mistress on JFK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcXeutDmuRA
Olson didn't fare much better on Paper Dolls. Although the show itself only lasted 13 episodes, her character was killed offscreen in a plane crash in the final episode. Had the series continued, her character would be gone and her sister would have come in to the series. Producers were looking at former movie actresses to play her sister, who would have been more of an Alexis Carrington-type character.
In answer to the OP's question, I seriously don't think any actress could have successfully replaced Bel Geddes. If the producers waited a season or two, it might have been more acceptable. Or have the replacement appear as a recurring guest star, who pops in every now and then.
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Although the usual story that Barbara "quit" and then got "jealous" seeing another actress in her role was made up to make the executives look innocent in the fiasco.
They actually fired Barbara and then quietly went crawling back and asked her to come back.
I didn´t know that....I heard that Barbara was sick and needed a heart Surgery that´s why she wasn´t in the second half of Season 7..and they hired Donna Reed to replace her for S8...after Season 8 Barbara wanted to come back and Larry insist to hire her again and they fired Donna Reed...I always believed that Barbara was only too sick to appear in Season 8 because when she returned she looked not healthy rather than bloated because of medication...
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I didn´t know that....I heard that Barbara was sick and needed a heart Surgery that´s why she wasn´t in the second half of Season 7
Incorrect. Barbara's heart surgery happened AFTER season 6 ended (Spring 1983). She was missing from the first half of season 7, but did appear in the second half of season 7. It was in Spring 1984, a year AFTER her heart surgery that she was let go, due to contract dispute.
The same thing happened in 1990. The producers wanted to cut costs and slash Barbara's salary and her episode appearances, she walked. They tried to get her back, but were unsuccessful and she didn't appear in the final season. share
On March 15, 1983, Bel Geddes narrowly avoided a heart attack when her doctor discovered a condition requiring emergency quadruple by-pass surgery only days after filming was completed for the 1982–83 season. (News reports to the contrary, she did not have a heart attack.) As a result, she missed the first 11 episodes of the 1983–84 season[3]and was replaced with actress Donna Reed for the 1984–85 season. With her health improved, CBS-TV persuaded Lorimar Productions to return Bel Geddes to the role of Miss Ellie for the 1985–86 season.[4] She remained in the role until the latter stages of the penultimate season of Dallas in 1990.
But what it boiled down to was that fans didn't like Reed, and neither did Hagman.
This is the real poop: In the spring of 1983, sixty-year-old Barbara Bel Geddes - the show's original Miss Ellie - began to be plagued by heart problems. She finished out the season - barely - and five days after shooting her last scenes underwent triple bypass surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She returned to Dallas the following fall, but her workload had to be considerably lightened and she missed several episodes in September and October while she was still convalescing. (The writers explained her sudden absence by sending Miss Ellie on a long trip to Galveston.) Barbara finished out that season, but then chose to leave permanently. She announced that she was retiring from the grind of weekly television for the sake of her health.
Dallas was now confronted with a prickly dilemma: how to handle her departure. The producers created a dark scenario to explain her absence (they could quietly pull the plug on Miss Ellie) and a lighter one (they could send her off on an endless world cruise with her bridegroom, Clayton Farlow). Death or disappearance - the devil or the deep blue sea - neither option made much sense.
In 1981 Dallas had faced the death of actor Jim Davis by killing off his character, too. But with Jock Ewing, the patriarch of the clan, gone, terminating Miss Ellie seemed out of the question. The show couldn't survive both parental figures gone.
"We didn't want to leave J.R. an orphan," explains Capice. "When Jim Davis
died, there was so much publicity surrounding his death, and he was so identified with the character of Jock Ewing, that there was never any question of replacing him. Out of respect to Jim's memory, we felt it would be wrong to bring in another actor. Besides, we still had Miss Ellie fulfilling that very important parental role of keeping J.R. in line.
"However, Barbara's leaving was a far different situation. We couldn't simply
eliminate Miss Ellie - she was the only authority figure left at Southfork - it would have changed the whole chemistry of the show. Without mama around, J.R. would have started running wild. Family devotion - to his mother, to his son - that's what redeems him. So even though we were concerned that the audience might not suspend its disbelief and accept a new actress in the role, it was the only option open to us. We had no good solution to the problem of Barbara Bel Geddes leaving; so we felt recasting was the lesser of two evils."
And so Donna Reed, who had starred in her own TV sitcom, The Donna Reed Show, for eight seasons, was persuaded to step in. She joined the show several weeks into the 1984-85 season - with an avalanche of preparatory hype in all the supermarket tabloids - but viewers just didn't warm up to her. There were also reports that Larry Hagman, who'd supposedly campaigned for his own mother, Mary Martin (a genuine Texan), to take over the role, gave Donna only a lukewarm reception on the set. All in all it was a difficult season for her. In her attempt not to copy Barbara Bel Geddes' performance, she created a Miss Ellie who seemed to come from a much more rarefied atmosphere than the rest of the Ewings. Donna's version of Miss Ellie was a gracious Southfork matron, well-bred and distinctly upper crust. It was hard to believe that she'd ever roped cattle and branded steers at her daddy's side.
Her success on Dallas seemed dubious at best, but other changes virtually signed her pink slip. In the spring of 1985 two other cast members - Charlene Tilton and Patrick Duffy - decided to jump ship. In the light of those defections, Lorimar felt it was imperative to get Barbara Bel Geddes back. Even though Donna Reed had signed a four year contract, the show hastily bought her out, but reportedly handled her dismissal in a less than tactful way. (She got word that she'd been dumped from the show while on vacation in Europe, with no prior warning from the producers.)
Meanwhile Larry Hagman and Linda Gray, two of Barbara's closest pals in the cast, phoned her at her sixty-acre farm in upstate New York and helped convince her to return. After a year off, she was in much better physical condition and, obviously, the charm of permanent retirement wore off pretty quickly. As far as returning went, more money wasn't an issue, but her health was. So Barbara's new contract exempted her from doing any location shooting in Dallas during June and July, the two hottest months of the year.
After spending most of her year-long retirement just relaxing at her farm, Barbara was more than anxious to get back to work. But the crossfire over Donna Reed's dismissal disturbed her. "I think the way she was told was very unfortunate," Barbara confided to a national tabloid. "You would have thought that the producers could have discussed it with her before she went on vacation." Donna herself was angry enough to institute a lawsuit against her former bosses, but her war with Dallas proved futile. Just a few months after leaving the show, she was stricken with cancer and died before the year was out.
I don't know where you copied this article but its full of untruths.
Her success on Dallas seemed dubious at best, but other changes virtually signed her pink slip. In the spring of 1985 two other cast members - Charlene Tilton and Patrick Duffy - decided to jump ship. In the light of those defections, Lorimar felt it was imperative to get Barbara Bel Geddes back.
Tilton didn't jump ship. She was fired. Producers thought that they couldn't do anything with Lucy anymore and wanted to cut costs.
Even though Donna Reed had signed a four year contract, the show hastily bought her out, but reportedly handled her dismissal in a less than tactful way. (She got word that she'd been dumped from the show while on vacation in Europe, with no prior warning from the producers.)
Reed's contract was for three years, not four. And they didn't buy her out. She sued Lorimar for breach of contract and won. At one point, she (or her lawyers rather) sought an injunction to try and stop production on the ninth season of Dallas.
Bel Geddes was fired after season 7 for contractual reasons. She wanted a raise, producers said no. Producers brought her back after realizing Reed wasn't working as a replacement with viewers. But they tried to spin the story that Bel Geddes demanded her role back after seeing Reed on screen playing Miss Ellie.
Producers fired Bel Geddes again after season 13 when there was a dispute again over her contract. Producers tried cutting costs for season 14, they tried to cut Bel Geddes' salary and episode appearances. She wasn't having it. share
Reed's contract was for three years, not four. And they didn't buy her out. She sued Lorimar for breach of contract and won
Lorimar settled to get the story out of the press. If it had gone to trial, it's unlikely Reed would have won as those contracts rarely protect the actor but bind them to the production.
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LBJ's mistress on JFK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcXeutDmuRA
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It´s Copied it from Wikipedia and before you say anybody can Edit - No you can´t without a Source your Edit will not be shown.
Apart from that Every Dallas Fan Site says the same about BBG absence - she left because she had heath problems. When they have fired her after Season 7, why was she already absence for the second hald of Season 7?
So Tilton was fired too? I guess they begged her to come back too?
And then fired her again like they did with BBG. Sorry but this sounds ridiculous.
I guess Linda,Victoria and Patrick were fired too in your book?
Do you have a source?
Many sites just repeat the same stories, and they aren't always true.
Bel Geddes indeed was fired at the beginning of Season 8 (per DVD count) because she asked for both a raise and a temporarily reduced workweek due to continued pain and fatigue from the heart surgery she'd had a year earlier. Then they rehired her for Season 9 because Reed had been a predictable disaster.
Then they fired BBG again in 1990 when she wanted a raise she knew she wouldn't get. (She was frustrated they were using her less and less despite many of the originals being long gone).
Tilton was indeed fired (which she admitted at the time) because the producers were being changed and no one knew what to do with Lucy anymore. Yes, with Lenny Katzman back in control, Tilton was invited back and she accepted -- but only a year or so after being asked.
Patrick left voluntarily in 1985 and had to be lured back a year later.
Victoria left voluntarily but only after the brass refused to give her financial parity with Patrick Duffy and also wanted her to re-sign for two years and she was only willing to do one more. (A year after she left, Larry Hagman passed an big money offer from the producers to lure her back, but she declined).
Linda Gray was indeed fired in 1989 over budget crunches (which happened all over the place at Lorimar after the company was bought out by Telepictures in 1986) although the split was amicable and PR politely claimed she'd quit.
Steve Kanaly and Priscilla Presely were also fired in 1988 over budget issues (the public story was that they quit) although Kanaly came back for some appearances thru 1989.
Susan Howard was fired in 1987 because she'd publicly criticized the use of the dream scenario.
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LBJ's mistress on JFK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcXeutDmuRA
Barbara Bel Geddes was not fired. She wanted more money, and the producers didn't offer her what she wanted, but they did offer her a contract to return. But she declined to sign and they hired Donna Reed. If I go into my managers office and demand a raise, and she refuses to give me one but allows me to continue at my current salary and then I quit, that is not the same as getting fired.
shareIf I go into my managers office and demand a raise, and she refuses to give me one but allows me to continue at my current salary and then I quit, that is not the same as getting fired.
That's not the same thing unless you have a contract with your employer. It's similar to a lease in your apartment. Once the contract is over, you're no longer bound to your employer, similar to a lease. Bel Geddes didn't quit. Her contract was up. She tried to renegotiate. They offered a certain amount, she didn't accept. She didn't up and leave. There was no contract, thus, no employment. share
Yes. Bel Geddes' representatives thought she had the clout, and she neglected to go to Larry for advice.
According to producer David Paulsen, once BBG realized that threats to replace her with another actress were serious and not just a negotiating ploy, she pushed her reps aside and picked up the phone herself and essentially said "Hey, hold on guys, we can work something out" but was told by the executives: "No, we're moving ahead".
At the very least, that sounds like a firing.
Paulsen also said that it became obvious right away that Reed "had been miscast." Which is why a lot of her dialogue starts going to Howard Keel or others.
The recasting of Miss Ellie really was a shock and the first crack in the veneer, and evidence that something was wrong behind the camera on DALLAS. From that point on, it seemed the show dispensed one major gaffe per season. Susan Howard referred to the pattern as "abusing the audience yet again."
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LBJ's mistress on JFK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcXeutDmuRA
Donna Reed didn't actually win. They reached a settlement. Many people believe it was because she was terminally ill, and the producers didn't want sympathy for her to influence the verdict. There was another reason though. Donna Reed knew she was already terminally ill when she signed the contract. Therefore, she knew that she would have been unable to fulfill the terms of the contract and they could have countersued her estate for breach of contract. But they didn't.
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