GAINESVILLE - The funeral for a retired Gainesville businessman and collector of Hudson automobiles, including one used in the Oscar-winning "Driving Miss Daisey," will be held Thursday.
Herbert C. Bell died Saturday at his residence following an extended illness. He was 95.
Bell established Bell's Cleaners on Washington Street in 1936. He owned and operated the business until he sold it in 1977.
He had been a member of St. Paul United Methodist Church on Washington Street since 1933 and served on numerous church committees, chairing some of them.
Bell was also active in a number of civic clubs in Gainesville. He was a past president of the Gainesville Lions Club and was a member of the Elks Club and Paul E. Bolding Post #7 American Legion.
He founded the Hudson Car Club in Gainesville in 1972. Bell was known for his collection of old cars - and his love of them - many of which were Hudsons.
One of his most famous cars is one that he loaned a movie company in 1989 during the filming of "Driving Miss Daisy" in and around Atlanta and other parts of Georgia. The movie, which picked up an Oscar for Best Picture, starred Jessica Tandy, who was 81 at the time, as an elderly Atlanta woman, and Morgan Freeman as her African-American chauffeur, and was set in 1950s Atlanta. Bell still owned that car at the time of his death.
The funeral will be Thursday at 4:00 at Little-Davenport Funeral Home in Gainesville.ments.
Saturday
May 4th, 2024
5:14AM
