Joan Bennett
- Category : Actress
- Type : MGE
- Profile : 3/5 - Martyr / Heretic
- Definition : Split - Small (22)
- Incarnation Cross : RAX Planning 1
Biography
American actress, she and sister Constance were on-screen from 1928. After 1967, she played in the TV soap "Dark Shadows." In a 50-year career, she made 75 films. During the '30s she appeared as a blonde ingénue then switched to sultry brunette in the '40s, such as "Scarlet Street" and "The Woman in the Window." "My change of hair color," she said, "made a definite difference in my career." "The Bennett Playbill," her autobiography, related her family history and career.
The daughter of actors Richard Bennett and Adrienne Morrison; her sisters, Barbara and Constance were screen actresses also. She attended boarding school in Connecticut and finishing school in Versailles before making her stage debut with her father in "Jarnegan" in 1928.
Bennett’s three marriages produced four daughters. Her first marriage was at the age of 16; she was a mother at 17 and divorcee at 18. Her second husband was producer-writer, Gene Markey, whom she married in 1932 and divorced in 1937. In 1940, she married producer Walter Wanger and that marriage ended in divorce as well. However it was then, with her third marriage, that she began to come into her own as an actress. Scandal cut her film career short in 1951 when Wanger shot her agent, Jennings Lang, in a jealous rage, later being arrested and jailed for several months.
In 1973, she was named "Mother of the Year" for her work with foster children.
Bennett died of a heart attack while at dinner on 7 December 1990 in Searsdale, New York. She was 80 years old.