I first became familiar with Joan Bennett from Dark Shadows, a gothic soap opera that eventually featured vampires, witches, werewolves, and all sorts of other supernatural creatures. Bennett played a number of parts during the show's five-year run and in one of its spin-off films. She had her share of screen-stealing moments in both, but long before Dark Shadows she enjoyed a distinguished and varied career.

She was the third daughter born to stage actors Richard Bennett and Adrienne Morrison; her elder sisters being Constance and Barbara Bennett. Despite a few small walk-ons in a play or two of her father's and a brief movie role, Bennett had no intention of being an actress. It was only after her first marriage failed and she had a young daughter to support that she turned to acting as a profession.

For a long time, Bennett was "Constance Bennett's sister," yet another blonde ingenue in a sea of blonde ingénues. She made a respectable number of movies, some of them better than others. There are some actors who really need decent material in order to shine and perhaps Bennett was one of these. When she had good directors and a good script, she was wonderful.

For her starring part in Trade Winds , Bennett had to don a brunette wig, which gave her a hitherto unexpected resemblance to Hedy Lamarr. The film and her new look was a success-causing Cole Porter to write not too long after:

"Let's speak of Lamarr, that Hedy so fair,
Why does she let Joan Bennett wear all her old hair?"

Whether it was the hair or something else, I don't know, but Bennett's acting and her films became a lot more interesting. While she still made her share of forgettable movies, Bennett hit her stride. Several influential directors cast her as femme fatales in some very significant film noirs. One of her most memorable performances was tawdry Kitty March in the Fritz Lang remake of Scarlet Street. She also starred in a Max Ophuls remarkable, now hard-to-find film, The Reckless Moment. Even when the finished product wasn't very good (Woman on the Beach), Bennett usually was.

After making the two films she's most known for today (Father of the Bride and Father's Little Dividend), she became embroiled in an unfortunate scandal when Walter Wanger, her then-husband, shot her agent. Tame by today's standards, the scandal nearly destroyed her career. Bennett made a few films afterward and concentrated on theatre.

In 1966, Bennett took an unprecedented step and agreed to star in a daytime soap opera, Dark Shadows . Her role as matriarch of the wealthy Collins family was eventually upstaged by the unexpected popularity of a new character, Barnabas Collins. Bennett went on to play several roles on the show, but after the first year, her billing as "star" was more titular than anything else.

Her last significant film was in Dario Argento's Suspiria. Apparently, Bennett herself never thought much of the movie. While it cannot be said that it contains one of her better performances, the movie is nonetheless a noteworthy entry in the horror genre.

Bennett died in her home in 1990.

© Michelle L. Zafron, 2003-2006

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