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I'm Harold, and this is my tribute to classic film actress and DARK SHADOWS star Joan Bennett.
As a child of the 1960's, I was one of the generation of school kids who ran home every day to watch DARK SHADOWS (1966-1971), the most popular daytime TV program of it's time. I didn't know it then, but the shows star, Joan Bennett, had been a bonafide movie star during Hollywood's Golden Era of the 1930's and 1940's. My parents were from that generation, and my Mom, in particular, enjoyed watching the films of that era on UHF television, and I right along with her. I came to love those classic movies and stars, none more so then Joan Bennett. This is my tribute to my favorite classic star.
Joan Bennett, the youngest of three daughters, was born in Palisades Park, New Jersey, on February 27, 1910, the daughter of stage actors Richard Bennett and Adrienne Morrison, and the younger sister of actresses Constance and Barbara Bennett.
Joan Bennett made her first film appearance in 1918 in an uncredited part and appeared in a few silent films while a child. She married at the age of 16, and when this marriage ended two years later, resumed her acting career. Contracted to 20th Century Fox she appeared as a blonde (her natural color) ingenue in a several films including BULLDOG DRUMMOND (1929) with Ronald Colman, MOBY DICK (1930) with John Barrymore and ME AND MY GAL (1932) with Spencer Tracy, before leaving this studio to appear in LITTLE WOMEN (1933) with Katharine Hepburn. She was not taken seriously as an actress and struggled to establish herself. Her task was further complicated by the rapid rise to fame of her sister Constance, who at this time was one of Hollywood's most successful and popular actresses, and with whom she was unfavourably compared.
She signed a contract with producer Walter Wanger, whom she would later marry in 1940. He managed her career, and with director Tay Garnett convinced her to change her hair from blonde to brunette. With this change her screen persona evolved into that of a glamorous seductress and she began to attract attention. During the search to find an actress to play Scarlett O'Hara in GONE WITH THE WIND, Bennett was tested and impressed producer David O. Selznick. She was briefly considered to be a front runner for this part but Selznick eventually turned his attention to Paulette Goddard, who was then rejected in favour of Vivien Leigh.
In the early 1940s Bennett appeared in four films directed by Fritz Lang. Three of them (MAN HUNT 1941, THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW 1944, and SCARLET STREET 1945) established her as a film noir femme fatale. She also worked with noted directors Jean Renoir in THE WOMAN ON THE BEACH (1947) and Max Ophüls in THE RECKLESS MOMENT (1949). She also played the wife of Spencer Tracy and mother of Elizabeth Taylor in FATHER OF THE BRIDE (1950) and its sequel, FATHER'S LITTLE DIVIDEND (1951). Midway through her career, Bennett had changed agents. In 1951 Wanger shot and injured Bennett's new agent, with whom she had begun an affair, and the resulting scandal damaged her career. Wanger spent two years in prison for the offense, but he and Bennett remained married until 1965.
She continued to work steadily in theatre and television and was a cast member of the television series DARK SHADOWS for its entire five year run, from 1966 until 1971, receiving an Emmy Award nomination for her performance therein. Bennett also appeared in a few more films, most notably Dario Argento's SUSPERIA (1977). In the last decades of her life, she was married to David Wilde, a wealthy businessman. Bennett died from a heart attack in Scarsdale, New York at the age of 80, and was buried in Pleasant View Cemetery, Lyme, Connecticut.
Bennett has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for services to Motion Pictures, at 6310 Hollywood Boulevard.
