Joan Bennett

Shop by the Stars aisle featuring Joan Bennett (1910-1990) vintage movie cards, still photos, ephemera, and other collectibles.

Fort Lee, NJ born daughter of actor Richard Bennett, Joan Bennett was also younger sister of actresses Constance and Barbara Bennett. All three sisters appeared in The Valley of Decision (1916), a film written by and starring their father, and while Joan also appeared with Richard Bennett in The Eternal City (1923), her career proper really begins on Broadway, again with her father, in Jarnegan (1928). Her movie career picked up with a few bits before gaining billing in major titles such as Bulldog Drummond (1929), Disreali (1929), and Moby Dick (1930). Bennett played opposite Spencer Tracy in Me and My Gal (1932), was Amy in Little Women (1933), and also appeared in titles like Mississippi (1935) and Big Brown Eyes (1936), but she entered the most successful period of her career right about the time that she went on the run in Trade Winds (1938) and dyed her formerly blond hair jet black. Soon after she appeared in five features for director Fritz Lang including classics Man Hunt (1941), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Scarlet Street (1945). She softened her image when she reunited with Spencer Tracy as the mother in Father of the Bride (1950) and its sequel. Bennett continued in movies and began working on television in the 1950s, though never in a more regular capacity as when she worked on Dark Shadows during its entire run in the 1960s. She also appeared in the feature film House of Dark Shadows (1970) and further cemented her place in horror history in Dario Argento's Suspiria (1977).

Birthday: February 27

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