Joan Bennett facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Joan Bennett
Bennett in Photoplay, December 1932
Born	Joan Geraldine Bennett (1910-02-27)February 27, 1910 Fort Lee, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	December 7, 1990(1990-12-07) (aged 80) Scarsdale, New York, U.S.
Resting place	Pleasant View Cemetery, Lyme, Connecticut, U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1916–1982
Spouse(s)	John Marion Fox ​ ​ (m. 1926; div. 1928)​ Gene Markey ​ ​ (m. 1932; div. 1937)​ Walter Wanger ​ ​ (m. 1940; div. 1965)​ David Wilde ​ ​ (m. 1978)​
Children	4
Parent(s)	Richard Bennett Adrienne Morrison
Relatives	Lewis Morrison (grandfather) Constance Bennett (sister) Barbara Bennett (sister) Morton Downey Jr. (nephew)

Joan Geraldine Bennett (February 27, 1910 – December 7, 1990) was an American stage, film, and television actress. She came from a show-business family, one of three acting sisters. Beginning her career on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 films from the era of silent films, well into the sound era. She is best remembered for her film noir femme fatale roles in director Fritz Lang's films—including Man Hunt (1941), The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945)—and for her television role as matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (and ancestors Naomi Collins, Judith Collins, and Flora Collins PT) in the gothic 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows, for which she received an Emmy nomination in 1968.

Bennett's career had three distinct phases: first as a winsome blonde ingenue, then as a brunette femme fatale (with looks that movie magazines often compared to those of Hedy Lamarr), and finally as a warmhearted wife-and-mother figure.

Bennett married four times.

For her final film role, as Madame Blanc in Dario Argento's cult horror film Suspiria (1977), she received a Saturn Award nomination.

Early life

Richard Bennett with his three daughters (from left), Constance, Joan, and Barbara (1918)

Joan Geraldine Bennett was born in the Palisade section of Fort Lee, New Jersey, on February 27, 1910, the youngest of three daughters of actor Richard Bennett and actress/literary agent Adrienne Morrison. Her elder sisters were actress Constance Bennett and actress/dancer Barbara Bennett, who was the first wife of singer Morton Downey and the mother of Morton Downey Jr. Part of a famous theatrical family, Bennett's maternal grandfather was Jamaica-born Shakespearean actor Lewis Morrison, who embarked on a stage career in the late 1860s. He was of English, Spanish, Jewish, and African ancestry. On the side of her maternal grandmother, actress Rose Wood, the profession dated back to traveling minstrels in 18th-century England.

Bennett first appeared in a silent movie as a child with her parents and sisters in her father's drama The Valley of Decision (1916), which he adapted for the screen. She attended Miss Hopkins School for Girls in Manhattan, then St. Margaret's, a boarding school in Waterbury, Connecticut, and L'Hermitage, a finishing school in Versailles, France.

On September 15, 1926, Bennett married John M. Fox in London. They divorced in Los Angeles on July 30, 1928. They had one child, Adrienne Ralston Fox (born February 20, 1928), for whom Bennett fought successfully in court to rename Diana Bennett Markey, when the child was eight years old. Her name changed to Diana Bennett Wanger in 1944.

Career

Bennett in the trailer for Disraeli (1929)

Bennett's stage debut was at the age of 18, acting with her father in Jarnegan (1928), which ran on Broadway for 136 performances and for which she received good reviews. By the time she turned 20 she had become a movie star through such roles as Phyllis Benton in Bulldog Drummond starring Ronald Colman, which was her first important role, and Lady Clarissa Pevensey opposite George Arliss in Disraeli (both 1929).

She moved quickly from movie to movie throughout the 1930s. Bennett appeared as a blonde (her natural hair color) for several years. She starred in the role of Dolores Fenton in the United Artists musical Puttin' On The Ritz (1930) opposite Harry Richman and as Faith Mapple, his beloved, opposite John Barrymore in an early sound version of Moby Dick (1930) at Warner Brothers.

Under contract to Fox Film Corporation, she appeared in several movies. Receiving top billing, she played the role of Jane Miller opposite Spencer Tracy in She Wanted a Millionaire (1932). She was billed second, after Tracy, for her role as Helen Riley, a personable waitress who trades wisecracks, in Me and My Gal (1932).

On March 16, 1932, she married screenwriter/film producer Gene Markey in Los Angeles, but the couple divorced in Los Angeles on June 3, 1937. They had one child, Melinda Markey (born February 27, 1934, on Bennett's 24th birthday).

Bennett in the trailer for Little Women (1933)

Bennett left Fox to play Amy, a pert sister competing with Katharine Hepburn's Jo in Little Women (1933), which was directed by George Cukor for RKO. This movie brought Bennett to the attention of independent film producer Walter Wanger, who signed her to a contract and began managing her career. She played the role of Sally MacGregor, a psychiatrist's young wife slipping into insanity, in Private Worlds (1935) with Joel McCrea. Bennett starred in the film Vogues of 1938 (1937), including the title sequence, in which she donned a diamond-and-platinum bracelet set with the Star of Burma ruby. Wanger and director Tay Garnett persuaded her to change her hair from blonde to brunette as part of the plot for her role as Kay Kerrigan in the scenic Trade Winds (1938) opposite Fredric March.

With her change in appearance, Bennett began an entirely new screen career as her persona evolved into that of a glamorous femme fatale. She played the role of Princess Maria Theresa in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) opposite Louis Hayward, and the role of the Grand Duchess Zona of Lichtenburg in The Son of Monte Cristo (1940) opposite Hayward.

During the search for an actress to play Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, Bennett was given a screen test and impressed producer David O. Selznick to such an extent that she was one of the final four actresses, along with Jean Arthur, Vivien Leigh and Paulette Goddard.

Bennett in the trailer for The Woman in the Window (1944)

On January 12, 1940, Bennett and producer Walter Wanger were married in Phoenix, Arizona. They were divorced in September 1965 in Mexico. The couple had two children together, Stephanie Wanger (born June 26, 1943) and Shelley Wanger (born July 4, 1948). The following year, on March 13, 1949, Bennett became a grandmother at the age of 39.

Bennett won praise for her performances as Brenda Bentley in The House Across the Bay (1940), also featuring George Raft, and as Carol Hoffman in the anti-Nazi drama The Man I Married, a film in which Francis Lederer also starred.

She then appeared in a sequence of highly regarded film noir thrillers directed by Fritz Lang, with whom she and Wanger formed their own production company. Bennett appeared in four movies under Lang's direction, including as Cockney Jerry Stokes in Man Hunt (1941) opposite Walter Pidgeon, as mysterious model Alice Reed in The Woman in the Window (1944) with Edward G. Robinson, and as blackmailer Katharine "Kitty" March in Scarlet Street (1945), another film with Robinson.

Bennett in Scarlet Street (1945)

Bennett was the shrewish wife, Margaret Macomber, in Zoltan Korda's The Macomber Affair (1947) opposite Gregory Peck, as the deceitful wife, Peggy, in Jean Renoir's The Woman on the Beach (also 1947) opposite Robert Ryan and Charles Bickford, and as tormented Lucia Harper in Max Ophüls' The Reckless Moment (1949) as the victim of a blackmailer played by James Mason. Then, easily shifting images again, she changed her screen persona to that of an elegant, witty and nurturing wife and mother in two comedies directed by Vincente Minnelli.

Playing the role of Ellie Banks, the wife of Spencer Tracy and mother of Elizabeth Taylor, Bennett appeared in both Father of the Bride (1950) and Father's Little Dividend (1951).

She made a number of radio appearances from the 1930s to the 1950s, performing on such programs as The Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Show, Duffy's Tavern, The Jack Benny Program, Ford Theater, Suspense and the anthology series Lux Radio Theater and Screen Guild Theater.

With the increasing popularity of television, Bennett made five guest appearances in 1951, including an episode of Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca's Your Show of Shows.

Political views

She was a very active member of both the Hollywood Democratic Committee and The Hollywood Anti-Nazi League and donated her time and money to many liberal causes (such as the Civil Rights Movement) and political candidates (including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Henry A. Wallace, Adlai Stevenson II, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter) during her lifetime.

Later years

Bennett and Wanger remained married until 1965. She continued to work steadily on the stage and in television, including a guest role as Denise Mitchell in an episode of TV's Burke's Law (1965).

Bennett in the TV series Dark Shadows

Bennett received star billing in the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows for its entire five-year run, 1966 to 1971, receiving an Emmy Award nomination in 1968 for her performance as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, mistress of the haunted Collinwood Mansion. Her other roles in Dark Shadows were Naomi Collins, Judith Collins Trask, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard PT (parallel time, as the show described its alternate reality), Flora Collins, and Flora Collins PT. In 1970, she appeared as Elizabeth in House of Dark Shadows, the feature film adaptation of the series. However, she declined to appear in the sequel Night of Dark Shadows, and her character Elizabeth was mentioned therein as being recently deceased.

Her autobiography The Bennett Playbill, written with Lois Kibbee, was published in 1970.

Her other TV guest appearances include Bennett's roles as Joan Darlene Delaney in an episode of The Governor & J.J. (1970) and as Edith in an episode of Love, American Style (1971). She starred in five made-for-TV movies between 1972 and 1982.

Bennett also appeared in one more feature film, as Madame Blanc in director Dario Argento's horror film Suspiria (1977), for which she received a 1978 Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Bennett and retired publisher/movie critic David Wilde were married on February 14, 1978, 13 days before her 68th birthday, in White Plains, New York. Their marriage lasted until her death in 1990.

Bennett's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6300 Hollywood Blvd

Celebrated for not taking herself too seriously, Bennett said in a 1986 interview, "I don't think much of most of the films I made, but being a movie star was something I liked very much."

Bennett has a motion pictures star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to the film industry. Her star is located at 6300 Hollywood Boulevard, a short distance from the star of her sister Constance.

Death

Bennett died of heart failure on Friday evening, December 7, 1990, aged 80, at her home in Scarsdale, New York. She is interred in Pleasant View Cemetery, Lyme, Connecticut, with her parents.

Filmography

Bennett appeared in many movies and television productions, listed below in their entirety.

Film

Bennett in the trailer for Father's Little Dividend (1951)

Television

Made-for-TV movies

• Gidget Gets Married (1972) as Claire Ramsey
• The Eyes of Charles Sand (1972) as Aunt Alexandra
• Suddenly, Love (1978) as Mrs. Graham
• This House Possessed (1981) as Rag Lady
• Divorce Wars: A Love Story (1982) as Adele Burgess

As herself

Short subject

• Screen Snapshots (1932)
• Hollywood on Parade No. A-12 (1933)
• The Fashion Side of Hollywood (1935)
• Hollywood Party (1937)
• Screen Snapshots Series 19, No. 9: Sports in Hollywood (1940)
• Hedda Hopper's Hollywood, No. 6 (1942)
• Screen Actors (1950) (uncredited)

Radio appearances

See also

In Spanish: Joan Bennett para niños