Joan Geraldine Bennett (February 27, 1910 – December 7, 1990) was an American stage, film and television actress. Besides acting on the
stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70
motion pictures from the era of
silent movies well into the
sound era. She is possibly best-remembered for her
film noir femme fatale roles in
director Fritz Lang's movies such as
The Woman in the Window (1944) and
Scarlet Street (1945).
Bennett had three distinct phases to her long and successful career, first as a winsome blonde
ingenue, then as a sensuous brunette femme fatale (with looks that movie magazines often compared to those of
Hedy Lamarr), and finally as a warmhearted wife/mother figure.
In 1951, Bennett's screen career was marred by
scandal after her third husband, film producer Walter Wanger, shot and injured her
agent Jennings Lang. Wanger suspected that Lang and Bennett were having an affair,
a charge which she adamantly denied.
In the 1960s, she achieved success for her portrayal of
Elizabeth Collins Stoddard on
TV's
Dark Shadows, for which she received an Emmy nomination. For her final movie role, as Madame Blanc in
Suspiria (1977), she received a
Saturn Award nomination.
Early life
She was born in the Palisades section of
Fort Lee, New Jersey, the third of three daughters of actor
Richard Bennett and actress/literary agent
Adrienne Morrison. Adrienne Morrison's father was famous stage actor Lewis Morrison. Lewis Morrison (an Anglo-Scottish surname), whose real name was Morris Morris (an English, Scottish and Welsh surname), was a former mixed English and Spanish (his Spanish mother's maiden name was Carvalho) Confederate and Union lieutenant who served in the Confederate and Union Native Guards in the American Civil War.
Her older sisters were actress
Constance Bennett and actress/dancer
Barbara Bennett, who was 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 and Spanish 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, she and John M. Fox were married in
London. They were divorced on July 30, 1928 in
Los Angeles.
They had one child, Adrienne Ralston Fox (born February 20, 1928, later named Diana Bennett Markey,
then Diana Bennett Wanger)
Career
Bennett's stage debut was at age 18, acting with her father in
Jarnegan (1928), which ran on
Broadway for 136 performances and for which she received good reviews. By age 19, she had become a movie star through such roles as Phyllis Benton in the
mystery/
thriller talkie
Bulldog Drummond starring
Ronald Colman, which was her first important role, and Lady Clarissa Pevensey opposite
George Arliss in the
biopic 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 Studios.
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).
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
Claudette Colbert,
Charles Boyer, and
Joel McCrea. Wanger and director
Tay Garnett persuaded Bennett 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, seductive 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, she was one of the final four actresses along with
Jean Arthur,
Vivien Leigh and
Paulette Goddard. Selznick eventually cast
Vivien Leigh in the coveted role.
On January 12, 1940, Bennett and
Walter Wanger were married in
Phoenix.
They were divorced in September 1965 in
Mexico.
They had two children together, Stephanie Wanger (born June 26, 1943) and Shelley Wanger (born July 4, 1948). The following year on March 13, 1949, she became a grandmother at age 39. Similar to her co-star
Elizabeth Taylor who became a grandmother at the same age.
Combined with her sultry eyes and husky voice, Bennett's new brunette look gave her an earthier, more arresting persona. She won praise for her performances as Brenda Bentley in the
crime/
drama 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 prostitute 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 vulgar blackmailer Katharine "Kitty" March in
Scarlet Street (1945), another film with Robinson.
Bennett was the shrewish, cuckolding 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 the tormented blackmail victim Lucia Harper in
Max Ophuls'
The Reckless Moment (1949) opposite
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 classic
comedies directed by
Vincente Minnelli.
Playing the role of Ellie Banks, 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, and the anthology series
Lux Radio 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.
Scandal
For twelve years, Bennett was represented by
agent Jennings Lang. She and the onetime vice-president of the
Sam Jaffe Agency, who now headed
MCA's
West Coast television operations, met on the afternoon of December 13, 1951, to talk over an upcoming TV show.
Bennett parked her
Cadillac convertible in the lot at the back of the MCA offices, at Santa Monica Boulevard and Rexford Drive, across the street from the
Beverly Hills Police Department, and she and Lang drove off in his car. Meanwhile, her husband
Walter Wanger drove by at about 2:30 p.m. and noticed his wife's car parked there. Half an hour later, he again saw her car there and stopped to wait. Bennett and Lang drove into the parking lot a few hours later and he walked her to her convertible. As she started the engine, turned on the headlights and prepared to drive away, Lang leaned on the car, with both hands raised to his shoulders, and talked to her.
In a fit of jealousy, Wanger walked up and twice shot and wounded the unsuspecting agent. One bullet hit Jennings in the right thigh, near the hip, and the other penetrated his groin. Bennett said she did not see Wanger at first. She said she suddenly saw two livid flashes, then Lang slumped to the ground. As soon as she recognized who had fired the shots, she told Wanger, "Get away and leave us alone." He tossed the pistol into his wife's car.
She and the parking lot's service station manager took Lang to the agent's doctor. He was then taken to a hospital, where he recovered. The police, who had heard the shots, came to the scene and found the gun in Bennett's car when they took Wanger into custody. Wanger was booked and fingerprinted, and underwent lengthy questioning.
"I shot him because I thought he was breaking up my home," Wanger told the
chief of police of
Beverly Hills. He was booked on suspicion of assault with intent to commit murder. Bennett denied a romance, however. "But if Walter thinks the relationships between Mr. Lang and myself are romantic or anything but strictly business, he is wrong," she declared. She blamed the trouble on financial setbacks involving film productions Wanger was involved with, and said he was on the verge of a
nervous breakdown.
The following day Wanger, out on bond, returned to their
Holmby Hills home, collected his belongings and moved. Bennett, however, said there would not be a divorce.
On December 14, Bennett issued a
statement in which she said she hoped her husband "will not be blamed too much" for wounding her agent. She read the prepared statement in the bedroom of her home to a group of newspapermen while TV cameras recorded the scene.
Wanger's attorney,
Jerry Giesler, mounted a "
temporary insanity"
defense. He then decided to waive his rights to a jury and threw himself on the mercy of the court.
Wanger served a four-month sentence in the County Honor Farm at
Castaic, 39 miles north of
Downtown Los Angeles,
quickly returning to his career to make a series of successful films.
Meanwhile, Bennett went to
Chicago to appear on the
stage in the role as the young witch Gillian Holroyd in
Bell, Book, and Candle,
then went on national tour with the production.
Bennett made only five movies in the decade that followed, as the shooting incident was a stain on her career and she became virtually blacklisted. Blaming the scandal that occurred for destroying her career in the motion picture industry, she once said, "I might as well have pulled the trigger myself." Although
Humphrey Bogart, a longtime friend of Bennett's, pleaded with the studio on her behalf to keep her role as Amelie Ducotel in
We're No Angels (1955), that movie proved to be one of her last.
As the movie offers dwindled after the scandal, Bennett continued touring in stage successes, such as
Susan and God,
Once More, with Feeling,
The Pleasure of His Company and
Never Too Late. Her next TV appearance was in the role as Bettina Blane for an episode of
General Electric Theater in 1954. Other roles include Honora in
Climax! (1955) and Vickie Maxwell in
Playhouse 90 (1957). In 1958, she appeared as the mother in the short-lived television comedy/drama
Too Young to Go Steady to teenagers played by
Brigid Bazlen and
Martin Huston.
She starred on Broadway in the comedy
Love Me Little (1958), which ran for only eight performances.
Later years
Despite the shooting scandal and the damage it caused Bennett's career, she and Wanger remained married until 1965. She continued to work steadily on the
stage and in
television, including her guest role as Denise Mitchell in an episode of TV's
Burke's Law (
1965).
Bennett was a cast regular on the
gothic daytime television soap opera Dark Shadows, which attracted a major
cult TV following, 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 on Dark Shadows were Naomi Collins, Judith Collins Trask, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard PT, Flora Collins, and Flora Collins PT. In 1970, she appeared as Elizabeth in
House of Dark Shadows, the feature film adaptation of the series. She declined to appear in the sequel
Night of Dark Shadows however, and her character Elizabeth was mentioned as being recently deceased.
Her
autobiography,
The Bennett Playbill, written with
Lois Kibbee, was published in 1970.
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
Italian director
Dario Argento's
horror thriller Suspiria (1977), for which she received a 1978
Saturn Award nomination for
Best Supporting Actress.
On February 14, 1978, she and retired
publisher/
movie critic David Wilde were married in
White Plains, New York.
Their marriage lasted until her death.
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."
Death
Bennett died at age 80 from a
heart attack at her home in
Scarsdale, New York.
She is interred in Pleasant View Cemetery,
Lyme, Connecticut,
with her parents.
She has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame for her work in Motion Pictures, at 6310
Hollywood Boulevard,
Hollywood.
Filmography
Bennett appeared in a large number of motion pictures, as well as network television productions, series work and made-for-TV movies, which are listed here in their entirety.
Film Year Title Role Notes
1916 The Valley of Decision unborn soul
1923 The Eternal City Page uncredited
1928 Power a dame
1929 The Divine Lady extra uncredited
1929 Bulldog Drummond Phyllis Benton
1929 Three Live Ghosts Rose Gordon
1929 Disraeli Lady Clarissa Pevensey
1929 The Mississippi Gambler Lucy Blackburn
1930 Puttin' on the Ritz Delores Fenton
1930 Crazy That Way Ann Jordan
1930 Moby Dick Faith Mapple, his beloved
1930 Maybe It's Love (a.k.a. Eleven Men and a Girl) Nan Sheffield
1930 Scotland Yard Xandra, Lady Lasher
1931 Many a Slip Pat Coster
1931 Doctors' Wives Nina Wyndram
1931 Hush Money Joan Gordon
1932 She Wanted a Millionaire Jane Miller
1932 Careless Lady Sally Brown
1932 The Trial of Vivienne Ware Vivienne Ware
1932 Week Ends Only Venetia Carr
1932 Wild Girl Salomy Jane
1932 Me and My Gal Helen Riley
1933 Arizona to Broadway Lynn Martin
1933 Little Women Amy
1934 The Pursuit of Happiness Prudence Kirkland
1934 The Man Who Reclaimed His Head Adele Verin
1935 Private Worlds Sally MacGregor
1935 Mississippi Lucy Rumford
1935 Two for Tonight Bobbie Lockwood
1935 She Couldn't Take It Carol Van Dyke
1935 The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo Helen Berkeley
1936 Big Brown Eyes Eve Fallon
1936 Thirteen Hours by Air Felice Rollins
1936 Two in a Crowd Julia Wayne
1936 Wedding Present Monica "Rusty" Fleming
1937 Vogues of 1938 Wendy Van Klettering
1938 I Met My Love Again Julie
1938 The Texans Ivy Preston
1938 Artists and Models Abroads Patricia Harper
1938 Trade Winds Kay Kerrigan
1939 The Man in the Iron Mask Princess Maria Theresa
1939 The Housekeeper's Daughter Hilda
1940 Green Hell Stephanie Richardson
1940 The House Across the Bay Brenda Bentley
1940 The Man I Married Carol Hoffman
1940 The Son of Monte Cristo Grand Duchess Zona of Lichtenburg
1941 She Knew All the Answers Gloria Winters
1941 Man Hunt Jerry Stokes
1941 Wild Geese Calling Sally Murdock
1941 Confirm or Deny Jennifer Carson
1942 The Wife Takes a Flyer Anita Woverman
1942 Twin Beds Julie Abbott
1942 Girl Trouble June Delaney
1943 Margin for Error Sophia Baumer
1944 The Woman in the Window Alice Reed
1945 Nob Hill Harriet Carruthers
1945 Scarlet Street Katharine "Kitty" March
1946 Colonel Effingham's Raid Ella Sue Dozier
1947 The Macomber Affair Margaret Macomber
1947 The Woman on the Beach Peggy
1948 Secret Beyond the Door... Celia Lamphere
1948 Hollow Triumph Evelyn Hahn
1949 The Reckless Moment Lucia Harper
1950 Father of the Bride Ellie Banks
1950 For Heaven's Sake Lydia Bolton
1951 Father's Little Dividend Ellie Banks
1951 The Guy Who Came Back Kathy Joplin
1954 Highway Dragnet Mrs. Cummings
1955 We're No Angels Amelie Ducotel
1956 There's Always Tomorrow Marion Groves
1956 Navy Wife Peg Blain
1960 Desire in the Dust Mrs. Marquand
1970 House of Dark Shadows Elizabeth Collins Stoddard
1977 Suspiria Madame Blanc
