It was a real-world scandal worthy of a soap opera when Donna Reed replaced Barbara Bel Geddes as Miss Ellie Ewing in the eighth season of "Dallas."

Bel Geddes left the show a year after having heart surgery, and Reed stepped in. However, she was promptly dropped from it again in 1985 when Bel Geddes returned. Reed sued the producers and settled out of court.

Those are the facts. Now for the speculation.

Bel Geddes officially left in 1984 due to her health problems, but writer David Paulsen said in an "E! True Hollywood Story" documentary about "Dallas" that she left because the show wouldn't meet her salary demands.

"Her manager wanted more than the show felt we could afford to pay. It was a very tightly run show from a budgetary standpoint."

Furthermore, "Dallas" producer Arthur Bernard Lewis told E! that Bel Geddes decided to return not because she was healthy again, but because she was jealous.

"When she saw Donna Reed on the air, in her role, she called and said 'I want to come back.' She said, 'I can't stand to see somebody else read my lines.'"

Reed's husband, Grover Asmus, said in the "E!" special that this process was helped along by the crew, who tried to drive Reed off the show, resenting that she was replacing the beloved Bel Geddes.

Reed refused to quit, however, so the show had to fire her in the off-season.

We'll probably never know how much of this is true. We're left with second- and third-hand accounts because Reed died in 1986 and Bel Geddes in 2005. It's sad to think that this whole scandal was tied to Bel Geddes's poor health, while in the end it was Reed who wouldn't even have survived her contract.

The intrigue, the guessed-at motivations and the sad twist at the end all make this story worthy of one of the most beloved prime-time soaps in TV history.

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