Joan Bennett (1910-1990)

Joan Bennett

Joan Bennett, one of three acting daughters of silent-screen star Richard Bennett, was for a while less prominent a film star than her sister Constance, though over the long haul she became more famous. She started as a blonde ingenue and then became the brunette femme fatale, glamorous and sexy. Her quiet charm and warm, vibrant speaking voice gave her considerable appeal.

As well as her stage appearances she played in more than 70 movies starting in the silent film era and finally achieving fame in the new medium of television. Her movie career was seriously affected by the scandal surrounding her third husband, Walter Wanger, who shot and injured her agent who he thought was having an affair with Bennett.

Joan Bennett was born in February, 1910 in New Jersey, USA. Her sisters, both older, were actress Constance Bennett and actress/dancer Barbara Bennett.

She made her first appearance onstage at age four, then made her silent film debut two years later in 'The Valley of Decision' in 1916, in which her whole family acted. After more bit parts in her father's films, she became a leading lady in early talkies, opposite Ronald Colman in 'Bulldog Drummond' in 1929. She became extremely popular and made 14 films under a Fox contract, including 'Disraeli' in 1929 with Geoarge Arliss, and 'Me and My Gal' in 1932 with Spencer Tracy.

She survived being written into 'Moby Dick' in 1930 as Captain Ahab Ceely's love interest, and worked througout the 1930's in ingenue roles such as Amy March in 'Little Women' in 1933 and the princess in 'The Man in the Iron Mask' in 1939.

After Walter Wanger got her to change her style to brunette for 'Trade Winds' in 1938 her whole screen image changed at once to sizzling temptress.

After an against-type part as an implied streetwalker in Fritz Lang's 'Man Hunt' in 1941, Bennett delivered her best screen performances in subsequent Fritz Lang film noirs such as 'Man Hunt' in 1941, then dangerously bewitching Edward G. Robinson as the long-legged, cold hearted, outwardly classy but basically a villainess in 'The Woman in the Window' in 1944 and 'Scarlet Street' in 1945.

In 1951, her husband of 11 years, producer Walter Wanger, shot her new agent, Jennings Lang, in a jealous rage over an alleged affair which Bennett vehemently denied. Wanger was sent to prison for two years, but the couple remained married until 1965. The scandal that ensued almost ended Bennett's career. Her only notable screen role in later years was as a chic, malevolent witch in Dario Argento's horror fantasy 'Suspiria' in 1977. However, she worked steadily and successfully in TV, including the entire five-year run of the Gothic soap opera 'Dark Shadows, for which she received an Emmy Award nomination and that led to a movie spin-off, 'House of Dark Shadows' in 1970.

On Valentines Day, 1978, she married retired movie critic David Wilde in White Plains, New York. The marriage lasted until her death.

Her final public performance was in the made for TV movie 'Divorce Wars: A Love Story' in 1982. Joan Bennett died from an heart attack on December 7, 1990, in Scarsdale, New York aged 80 years.