Constance Bennett | |
|---|---|
 Bennett inRockabye (1932) | |
| Born | Constance Campbell Bennett (1904-10-22)October 22, 1904 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | July 24, 1965(1965-07-24) (aged 60) Fort Dix, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Resting place | Arlington National Cemetery |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1916–1965 |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 3 |
| Parent(s) | Richard Bennett Adrienne Morrison |
| Relatives | Lewis Morrison (maternal grandfather) Barbara Bennett (sister) Joan Bennett (sister) Morton Downey Jr. (nephew) |
Constance Campbell Bennett (October 22, 1904 – July 24, 1965) was an American stage, film, radio, and television actress and producer. She was a majorHollywood star during the 1920s and 1930s; during the early 1930s, she was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. Bennett frequently played society women, focusing on melodramas in the early 1930s and then taking more comedic roles in the late 1930s and 1940s. She is best remembered for her leading roles inWhat Price Hollywood? (1932),Bed of Roses (1933),Topper (1937),Topper Takes a Trip (1938), and had a prominent supporting role inGreta Garbo's last film,Two-Faced Woman (1941).[1]
She was the daughter of stage and silent film starRichard Bennett, and the elder sister of actressJoan Bennett.[1]
Bennett was born in New York City, the eldest of three daughters of actressAdrienne Morrison and actorRichard Bennett. Her younger sisters were actressesJoan Bennett andBarbara Bennett. All three girls attended theChapin School in New York.[2]
After some time spent in a convent, Bennett entered acting, Constance, the first Bennett sister to entermotion pictures, appeared in New York–producedsilent movies before a meeting withSamuel Goldwyn led to herHollywood debut inCytherea (1924). She abandoned a career in silent films for marriage to Philip Plant in 1925 but resumed her film career after their divorce in 1929, at the advent of talking pictures.
In the early 1930s, Bennett was frequently among the top actresses named in audience popularity and box-office polls. In 1931, a short-lived contract withMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer earned her $300,000 for two movies which includedThe Easiest Way and made her one of the highest-paid stars inHollywood. Warner Brothers paid her the all-time high salary of $30,000 a week forBought! in 1931.[3] Richard Bennett, her father, was also cast in this film.
The next year she moved toRKO, where she acted inWhat Price Hollywood? (1932), directed byGeorge Cukor, a behind-the-scenes look at the Hollywoodstudio system, in which she portrayed waitress Mary Evans, who becomes a movie star.Lowell Sherman co-starred as the film director who discovers her, andNeil Hamilton as the wealthy playboy she marries who later divorces her. The filmMorning Glory had been written with Bennett in mind for the lead role, but producerPandro S. Berman gave the role toKatharine Hepburn, who won anAcademy Award for her performance.[citation needed]
During her time at RKO, Bennett briefly became the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. RKO controlled the careers of actressesAnn Harding andHelen Twelvetrees in a similar manner, hoping to duplicate Bennett's success.[4]
Bennett next showed her versatility in the likes ofOur Betters (1933), writer/directorGregory La Cava'sBed of Roses (1933) withPert Kelton,After Tonight (1933, co-starring with future husband Gilbert Roland),The Affairs of Cellini (1934),After Office Hours (1935) withClark Gable,Topper (1937, as Marian Kerby oppositeCary Grant, a role she repeated in the 1939 sequel,Topper Takes a Trip), the madcap family comedyMerrily We Live (1938) andTwo-Faced Woman (1941, supportingGreta Garbo).
By the 1940s, Bennett was working less frequently in film but was in demand in bothradio andtheatre. She had her own program,Constance Bennett Calls on You, onABC radio in 1945–1946.[5] In 1945–1946, she hostedThe Constance Bennett Show on ABC Radio.[6]
She had a major supporting role inThe Unsuspected (1947), in which she played Jane Moynihan, the program director who helps prove that radio host Victor Grandison (Claude Rains) is guilty of murder. In the 1950s,As Young as You Feel (1951) found her playing oppositeMarilyn Monroe. Bennett played herself in a cameo inIt Should Happen to You (1954). In 1957–1958, she toured the United States in the title role ofAuntie Mame.[7] Bennett made her final screen appearance in the 1965 filmMadame X (released posthumously in 1966), as the blackmailing mother-in-law.
Bennett was married five times and had three children.
On June 15, 1921, Bennett eloped with Chester Hirst Moorehead of Chicago, a student at theUniversity of Virginia[8] who was the son of oral surgeonFrederick Moorehead.[9] They were married by a justice of the peace inGreenwich, Connecticut. Bennett was 16 at the time.[8][note 1][10][note 2][11] ANew York Times article reporting the elopement observed: "The parents of Miss Bennett were opposed to their marriage at this time solely on account of their youth."[8] The marriage was annulled in 1923.[note 3][11]
Bennett's next serious relationship was with millionaire socialite Philip Morgan Plant. Her parents planned a cruise to Europe, taking Constance with them, to separate the couple. As the ship was preparing to leave port, however, the Bennetts saw Plant and his parents boarding, too. A contemporary newspaper article reported, "Now the little beauty and the heir to all the Plant millions were assured a week of the cosy intimacy which an ocean liner affords."[10] In November 1925, the two eloped and were married in Greenwich, Connecticut, by the same justice of the peace who officiated at Bennett's wedding to Moorehead.[12] They divorced in a French court[13] in 1929.[14]
In 1932, Bennett returned from Europe with a three-year-old child, whom she claimed to have adopted and named Peter Bennett Plant (born 1929). In 1942, however, during a battle over a large trust fund established to benefit any descendants of her former husband, Bennett announced that her adopted son actually was her natural child by Plant, born after the divorce and kept hidden to ensure that the child's biological father did not get custody. During the court hearings, the actress told her former mother-in-law and her husband's widow that "if she got to the witness stand she would give a complete account of her life with Plant." The matter was settled out of court.[15][16]
In 1931, Bennett made headlines when she married one ofGloria Swanson's former husbands,Henri le Bailly, the Marquis de La Coudraye de La Falaise,[17] a French nobleman and film director. She and de la Falaise founded Bennett Pictures Corp. and co-produced two films which were the Hollywood films shot in the two-strip Technicolor process,Legong: Dance of the Virgins (1935) filmed on location inBali, andKilou the Killer Tiger (1936), filmed inIndochina. The couple divorced inReno, Nevada, in 1940.[18]
Bennett's fourth marriage was to actorGilbert Roland. They were married in 1941 and had two daughters, Lorinda "Lynda" and Christina "Gyl".[note 4][17] They divorced in 1946, with Bennett winning custody of their children. Later that year, Bennett married for the fifth and final time toUS Air ForceColonel John Theron Coulter.[17] After her marriage, she concentrated her efforts on providing relief entertainment to US troops still stationed in Europe, winning military honors for her services. Bennett and Coulter remained married for the rest of her life. Bennett supportedBarry Goldwater in the1964 United States presidential election.[19]
Bennett died on July 24, 1965, aged 60. As the wife of John Theron Coulter, who had achieved the rank ofbrigadier general, she was buried inArlington National Cemetery. Coulter died in 1995 and was buried with her.[20]
Bennett has amotion pictures star on theHollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to thefilm industry. Her star is located at 6250Hollywood Boulevard,[21] a short distance from the star of her sister,Joan.
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1916 | The Valley of Decision | Unborn soul | Lost film |
| 1922 | Reckless Youth | Chorus Girl | |
| Evidence | Edith | Lost film | |
| What's Wrong with the Women? | Elise Bascom | Lost film | |
| 1924 | Cytherea | Annette Sherman | Lost film |
| Into the Net | Madge Clayton, his sister | Lost film | |
| 1925 | The Goose Hangs High | Lois Ingals | Lost film |
| Code of the West | Georgie May | Lost film | |
| My Son | Betty Smith | Lost film | |
| My Wife and I | Aileen Alton | Lost film | |
| The Goose Woman | Hazel Woods | ||
| Wandering Fires | Guerda Anthony | ||
| Sally, Irene and Mary | Sally | ||
| The Pinch Hitter | Abby Nettleton | ||
| 1926 | Married ? | Marcia Livingston |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1929 | Rich People | Connie Hayden | |
| This Thing Called Love | Ann Marvin | Lost film | |
| 1930 | Son of the Gods | Allana | |
| Three Faces East | Frances Hawtree / Z-1 | ||
| Common Clay | Ellen Neal | ||
| Sin Takes a Holiday | Sylvia Brenner | ||
| 1931 | The Easiest Way | Laura Murdock | |
| Born to Love | Doris Kendall | ||
| The Common Law | Valerie West | ||
| Bought! | Stephanie Dale | ||
| 1932 | Screen Snapshots | Herself | Short subject |
| Lady with a Past | Venice Muir | ||
| What Price Hollywood? | Mary Evans | ||
| Two Against the World | Miss Adele 'Dell' Hamilton | ||
| Rockabye | Judy Carroll | ||
| 1933 | Our Betters | Lady Pearl Grayston | |
| Bed of Roses | Lorry Evans | ||
| After Tonight | Carla Vanirska, aka K-14 and Karen Schöntag | ||
| 1934 | Moulin Rouge | Helen Hall / Raquel | |
| The Affairs of Cellini | Duchess of Florence | ||
| Outcast Lady | Iris | ||
| 1935 | After Office Hours | Sharon Norwood | |
| Legong | Producer only | ||
| Starlit Days at the Lido[22] | Herself | Short subject | |
| 1936 | Everything Is Thunder | Anna von Stucknadel | |
| Ladies in Love | Yoli Haydn | ||
| 1937 | Daily Beauty Rituals | Herself | Short subject |
| Topper | Marion Kerby | ||
| 1938 | Merrily We Live | Jerry Kilbourne | |
| Service de Luxe | Helen Murphy | ||
| Topper Takes a Trip | Marion Kerby | ||
| 1939 | Tail Spin | Gerry Lester | |
| 1940 | Escape to Glory | Christine Blaine | |
| 1941 | Law of the Tropics | Joan Madison | |
| Picture People No. 2: Hollywood Sports | Herself | Short subject | |
| Two-Faced Woman | Griselda Vaughn | ||
| 1942 | Wild Bill Hickok Rides | Belle Andrews | |
| Hedda Hopper's Hollywood No. 5 | Herself | Short subject | |
| Sin Town | Kye Allen | ||
| Madame Spy | Joan Bannister | ||
| 1945 | Paris Underground | Kitty de Mornay | Also produced |
| 1946 | Centennial Summer | Zenia Lascalles | |
| 1947 | The Unsuspected | Jane Moynihan | |
| 1948 | Smart Woman | Paula Rogers | |
| Angel on the Amazon | Dr. Karen Lawrence | ||
| 1951 | As Young as You Feel | Lucille McKinley | |
| 1954 | It Should Happen To You | Guest Panelist | |
| 1966 | Madame X | Estelle | Released posthumously |
