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:For the January 1985 Playmate|Playboy Playmate of
the Month, see Joan Bennett (Playmate).

Joan Geraldine Bennett (February 27, 1910 –
December 7, 1990) was an United States|American
film actor|actress who also achieved success later
in life as a television actress.


Born in Palisades, New Jersey|Palisades, New
Jersey, Bennett was the daughter of stage actors
Richard Bennett and Adrienne Morrison, and was the
younger sister of actresses Constance Bennett and
Barbara Bennett (the mother of Morton Downey,
Jr.). Bennett and her siblings were also the grand
daughters of prominent stage actor Lewis Morrison.
Morrison, who was born in Jamaica, West Indies,(
died 1906) was a civil war veteran who served in
the black division of the Louisana Native Guards.

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
sixteen, and when this marriage ended two years
later, resumed her acting career.  Contracted to
20th Century Fox she appeared as a blonde ingenue
in a several films including Puttin' on the Ritz
in 1930, before leaving this studio to appear in
Little Women (1933).  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 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 a trio of
films directed by Fritz Lang.  Man Hunt (1941),
The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street
established her as a film noir femme fatale.   She
also played the wife of Spencer Tracy in Father of
the Bride (1950) and its sequel, Father's Little
Dividend (1951).

In 1951 Wanger shot and injured Bennett's agent,
who was also her lover, and the resulting scandal
damaged her career.   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 role. 

Bennett died from a myocardial infarction|heart
attack in Scarsdale, New York and was buried in
Pleasant View Cemetery, Lyme, Connecticut|Lyme,
Connecticut.

She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for
services to Motion Pictures, at 6310 Hollywood
Boulevard.

==External links==

*imdb name|id=0000910|name=Joan Bennett