LOS ANGELES - Actress Barbara Bel Geddes, best known for playing matriarch Miss Ellie in the TV series "Dallas", has died at the age of 82, a representative in her agent's office said on Wednesday. The cause of death was lung cancer, Lewis Bennett a San Francisco-based cousin of the actress, told the San Francisco Chronicle. She died at her home in Maine on Monday. Bel Geddes began life as a Broadway stage actress before moving into movies in the mid-1940s. But she found her biggest audience in her role as the formidable head of the warring Ewing oil family in "Dallas" from 1978 to 1991. Bel Geddes was nominated for both an Oscar and a Tony award early in her career but it was Miss Ellie who brought her an Emmy award win for best actress in 1980. Years before Bel Geddes originated the role of the caustic Maggie in the 1955 Broadway production of the Tennessee Williams play "Cat on Hot Tim Roof." She also starred in Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 thriller "Vertigo" and Elia Kazan's "Panic in the Streets." Reuters