Bennett, Joan

▪ American actress

born Feb. 27, 1910, Palisades, N.J., U.S.

died Dec. 7, 1990, Scarsdale, N.Y.

      versatile American film actress.

      The daughter of actor Richard Bennett and sister of actresses Constance and Barbara Bennett, Joan Bennett began her film career at the age of 19. Among the most notable of her many roles during the 1930s were as a wisecracking waitress in Me and My Gal (1932), as Amy, the youngest sister, in Little Women (1933), and as a woman slipping into mental illness in Private Worlds (1935). At the suggestion of producer Walter Wanger, her third husband, she changed her hair colour from blonde to brunette, which led to her successes in leading roles. They included a series of films noir directed by Fritz Lang, including Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945), followed by Jean Renoir's dark melodrama Woman on the Beach (1947). In 1950 she won acclaim for a comic role as the mother in Father of the Bride.

      Bennett's film career declined drastically after Wanger shot her agent in 1951, believing him to be her lover. She then toured American theatres in stage productions and also appeared often on television, including a regular role in the daily supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows (1966–70). Her autobiography The Bennett Playbill was published in 1970.

* * *