Joan Bennett Collection

Joan Bennett
(1910 – 1990)

Joan Bennett's star seemed to be on the rise from the day she was born, even if that star had to wait before it could shine brighter than her older sister's. The Bennett girls were born to silent film star Richard Bennett and stage actress Adrienne Morrison. Constance, Barbara and Joan would all go into film. In fact, their first appearance would be when Joan was only six in The Valley of Decision(1916), a silent drama which Richard had written for his wife.

Constance began making silent films in New York before Samuel Goldwyn coaxed her into moving to Hollywood in 1924. Joan appeared on Broadway with her father before she moving to Tinseltown to star with Ronald Colman in Bulldog Drummond (1929), Colman's first talkie.

With her innocent blonde good looks, Joan seemed an ideal ingenue, but her sister Constance tended to get better roles in the early 1930s. As Katherine Hepburn's little sister in Little Women (1933), she caught the eye of producer Walter Wagner, who began managing her increasingly successful career.

A film which made hardly a blip in Joan Bennett's storied career but is of great interest to old time radio fans was 1938's Artists and Models Abroad. The film was a follow-up to Jack Benny's Artists & Models(1937). Jack's popularity on the radio had won him a number of film roles, but Joan happened to be a terrific sport about Jack lampooning their relationship on the air. She was even a guest on The Jello Program during the film's production.

It would also be the last time the world saw Joan as a blonde. Wanger and director Tay Garnett convinced Joan to go brunette for Trade Winds(1938). The new look was drastic enough to change Joan's attitude and Hollywood's attitude toward her. Although the dye job was part of the plot, Joan quipped "everybody liked me in dark hair so I turned my hair dark and got much better parts."

The new hair color caught David O. Selznick's attention, and the producer asked Joan to test for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. Although she did not get the role, she was among the final four to be considered, along with Jean Arthur, Paulette Goddard and Vivian Leigh.

In 1940, Joan married her agent Walt Wanger. Her newly darkened locks gave Joan such a femme fatale look that she began to get parts in film noir thrillers, beginning with Man Hunt (1941). She also starred with Edward G. Robinson in The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945).

Joan got to show her comedic talents in Father of the Bride (1950) and the sequel Father's Little Dividend (1951), with Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor (Taylor and Joan shared February 27 birthdays).

Talent agent Jennings Lang, one time VP of the Sam Jaffe agency, had taken over management of Joan's career. Her producer husband, Walter Wanger, had a reputation as a womanizer, and their marriage had been rocky for some time. It was whispered around Hollywood that Joan and Jennings were having a weekly rendezvous at an apartment which belonged to an associate of Lang's.

Wanger, whose career had hit a slump while his wife's was taking off, shot Lang while he was leaning on the door of Joan's Cadillac. Although Lang survived the encounter and Wanger served time at the Castaic County Honor Farm (after pleading a "temporary insanity" defense), the scandal effectively derailed Joan's movie career. (After his release, Wanger would go on to produce Invasion of the Body Snatchers(1956) and I Want To Live!(1958).)

For the sake of their children, Joan and Walter did not divorce until 1965. She found work on stage and TV, including the lead in the supernatural TV soap opera Dark Shadow.

In addition to the fun she had with Jack Benny spoofing their relationship in the 1930's, Joan appeared in a number of radio productions in support of her movie roles over the years, including the Lux Radio Theateradaptations of Kid Galahad, Trade Winds, Woman in the Window and several others. Along with the laughs she shared with Jack, she also appeared as herself on Duffy's Tavern. The producers of Suspense took advantage of her reputation as a femme fatale in "Overture in Two Keys".

A Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6310 Hollywood Blvd honors Joan Bennett's work in Motion Pictures. Sister Constance Bennett has a Star nearby at 6250 Hollywood Blvd, although Joan's Star tends to get more visitors and recognition.