Word: bel
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...mused Designer Norman Bel Geddes last week, when he was asked about his younger daughter's birth. "Barbs was done the year I did the Palais Royal, my first New York restaurant." Daughter Barbara never turned out to be as glittering a production as the Palais Royal (eventually remodeled into the lavish Latin Quarter). Nor has she learned to match her father's trick of the casually preoccupied phrase. Nonetheless, in her own quieter way, Barbara Bel Geddes was celebrating last week her undisputed rise to fame and glory as an authentic star in her own right...
...Patty O'Neill, Moon's naive and unpredictable ingenue, who surprises a middle-aged lecher into an offer of marriage and an amiable young wolf into a promise of chastity, Barbara Bel Geddes shines and twinkles with an authentic radiance. Her give & take with Co-Stars Donald Cook and Barry Nelson is sharp, sure, and exquisitely timed. Her poise is unshakable. In 1941, when she first appeared on Broadway, critics had called Barbara a "plump" and "promising" ingenue. Now, trimmer, slimmer, and thoroughly resourceful on the stage, she is an accomplished, soundly competent performer...
Well-Scrubbed Schoolgirl. Few Broadway stars have failed so signally to look the part. As Patty, Barbara Bel Geddes (rhymes with wed us) looks and talks more like a Bryn Mawr graduate (which she is not) than the cop's daughter she plays, and more like Barbara Bel Geddes than either. In the navy blue pullover sweater, plain skirt, saddle shoes and white dickey collar which she wears about town almost as a uniform, she could easily be confused with a well-scrubbed Connecticut schoolgirl off to the movies...
...Actress Bel Geddes still falls prey to many an uncertainty about her chosen career. Before Moon opened, she worried over whether she was too old for Patty. Now she is worried over whether she is not too immature for other parts. Actually, she has already resolved both doubts to the satisfaction of most critics. As the simple, unaffected Southern belle of Deep Are the Roots (1945), she had shown her capacity for serious drama; now she has shown her mastery of the peculiar demands of airy farce. Cornell, Bankhead, Hayes and Lawrence will not have to give way to Barbara...
...Michigander of Scottish-German ancestry, Norman Bel Geddes has been, among other things, actor, producer, director, stage designer and author. The big brownstone house on Manhattan's East 37th Street in which Barbara spent her early childhood saw an endless stream of visitors from many worlds. It was Norman's studio as well as his home, and on the upper floors busy draftsmen and artisans were always hard at work, assembling stage models, cutting out rubber animals for a Macy parade, drawing up plans for a restaurant, or laying out production schedules for some new show...