Joan Bennett
Joan Bennett was born in Palisades Park, New Jersey, United States on February 27th, 1910 and is the Movie Actress. At the age of 80, Joan Bennett biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
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Joan Geraldine Bennett (February 27, 1910 – December 7, 1990) was an American stage, film, and television actress.
She came from a showbiz family and was one of three actresses.
Bennett, who began her career on stage, appeared in more than 70 films from the era of silent movies, well into the sound era.
She is perhaps best remembered for her film noir femme fatale appearances in director Fritz Lang's films Man Hunt (1941), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Scarlet Street (1945). Bennett's career spanned three phases: first as a winsome blonde ingenue, then as a sensuous brunette fatale (with looks that movie journals often mimic Hedy Lamarr's), and then as a warmhearted wife-and-mother figure. Bennett's film career was marred by controversies after her third husband, film director Walter Wanger, shot and wounded her agent Jennings Lang in 1951.
Wanger suspect Lang and Bennett were having an affair, which she denied adamantly.
Bennett has married four times. Elizabeth Collins Stoddard's appearance on TV's gothic fan favorite, Dark Shadows, earned her an Emmy nomination (1968).
She was nominated for her final film role, as Madame Blanc in Dario Argento's cult horror film Suspiria (1977).
She was dubbed "one of the most underrated actresses of her time" in her New York Times obituary.
Early life
Joan Geraldine Bennett was born in Fort Lee, New Jersey, on February 27, 1910, the youngest of three children of actor Richard Bennett and actress/literary agent Adrienne Morrison. Bennett's maternal grandmother, Constance Bennett, and actor/dancer Barbara Bennett, were the first wife of singer Morton Downey and the mother of Morton Downey Jr., who was a member of a popular theatrical family. He was of English, Spanish, Jewish, and African descent. Actress Rose Wood, a descendent of her maternal grandmother, discovered that traveling minstrels existed in 18th-century England.
In her father's drama The Valley of Decision (1916), which Bennett adapted for the screen, she appeared in a silent film as a child with her parents and siblings. 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, were both attended by her.
In London, 1926, 16-year-old Bennett married John M. Fox. They divorced in Los Angeles on July 30, 1928, based on allegations of his alcoholism. They had one child, Adrienne Ralston Fox (born February 20, 1928), for whom Bennett fought in court to rename Diana Bennett Markey when the child was eight years old. Diana Bennett Wanger was the name that was changed to Diana Bennett Wanger in 1944.
Career
Bennett debuted on Broadway in Jarnegan (1928), with her father in 1928, which attracted good reviews. By the time she turned 20 she had starred in Bulldog Drummond starring Ronald Colman, which was her first leading role, and Lady Clarissa Pevensey opposite George Arliss in Disraeli (both 1929).
Throughout the 1930s, she went from film to film in a flash. Bennett appeared as a blonde (her natural hair color) for many years. In an early sound version of Moby Dick (1930) at Warner Brothers, she appeared in the role of Dolores Fenton in the United Artists musical Puttin (1930) opposite Harry Richman and as Faith Mapple, his beloved, opposite John Barrymore.
She appeared in numerous films under Fox Film Corporation's banner. She Wanted a Millionaire (1932), which attracted top billing, she starred opposite Spencer Tracy in She Wanted a Millionaire (1932). Helen Riley, a personable waitress who trades wisecracks, was rated second in Me and My Gal (1932).
She married screenwriter/film producer Gene Markey in Los Angeles on March 16, 1932, but the pair divorced in Los Angeles on June 3, 1937. They had one child, Melinda Markey (born February 27, 1934, on Bennett's 24th birthday).
Bennett left Fox to play Amy, a pert sister competing in Little Women (1933), which was directed by George Cukor for RKO. Bennett was attracted by independent film maker Walter Wanger, who subsequently agreed to a contract and started directing her career. In Private Worlds (1935), she appeared as Sally MacGregor, a psychiatrist's teenage wife slipping into insanity. Bennett appeared in the 1938 film Vogues (1937), including the title sequence, in which she wore a diamond-and-platinum bracelet set with the Star of Burma ruby. Tay Garnett, a 15-year-old woman, begged her to change her hair from blonde to brunette as part of her character as Kay Kerrigan in the scenic Trade Winds (1938) opposite Fredric March.
Bennett began a new film career with her transformation into one of a glamorous, seductive femme fatale. Princess Maria Theresa of The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) opposite Louis Hayward, and in The Son of Monte Cristo (1940) opposite Hayward, she appeared as Princess Maria Theresa.
Bennett, who was auditioning for an actress to play Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, was given a screen test and impressed producer David O. Selznick to the extent that she was one of the final four actresses, alongside Jean Arthur, Vivien Leigh, and Paulette Goddard.
Bennett and producer Walter Wanger were married in Phoenix, Arizona, on January 12, 1940. They were divorced in Mexico in September 1965. Stephanie Wanger (born June 26, 1943) and Shelley Wanger (born July 4, 1948) had two children together. Bennett became a grandmother at the age of 39 in 1949, 1949.
Bennett's latest brunette beauty, combined with her sultry eyes and husky voice, made her her a more arresting figure. Brenda Bentley in The House Across the Bay (1940), also starring George Raft, and as Carol Hoffman in the anti-Nazi thriller The Man I Married, a film in which Francis Lederer also appeared, received acclaim.
She then appeared in a string of highly regarded film noir thrillers directed by Fritz Lang, with whom she and Wanger formed their own production company. Bennett appeared in four films under Lang's direction, including Cockney Jerry Stokes in Man Hunt (1941) opposite Walter Pidgeon, as a cryptic model in Alice Reed's "Matter in the Window (1944) opposite Edward G. Robinson and Katharine "Kitty" March in Scarlet Street (1945), another film with Robinson.
Margaret Macomber, Bennett's shrewish, cuckold wife, appeared in Jean Renoir's The Woman on the Beach (1947), as the deceitful wife of Peggy Bennett, as the perpetrator of a blackmailer played by James Mason. In two comedies directed by Vincente Minnelli, then converted her screen persona to that of an elegant, witty, and nurturing wife and mother.
Bennett, Ellie Banks, was the wife of Spencer Tracy's widow and mother of Elizabeth Taylor, and he appeared in both Father of the Bride (1950) and Father's Little Dividend (1951).
She appeared on radio shows from the 1930s to the 1950s, appeared on such programs as The Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy Exhibition, Duffy's Tavern, The Jack Benny Program, Ford Theater, Suspense, and the anthology group Lux Radio Theater.
Bennett made five guest appearances in 1951, including an episode of Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca's Your Show of Shows, as television's increasing success in television.