Joan Bennett was born in Palisades, New Jersey, in the United States, on February 27, 1910, into a family whose members belonged to the world of theater. Indeed, both her father and mother and her two sisters, Barbara and Constante, were actors.
For this reason, he began to intervene in different plays when he was in primary school, such as “The Valley of Decision”, of 1916, also taking part in small representations in his adolescence, such as “The Eternal City”, until in 1929, he was offered a role in the film “Captain Drummond”, along with Ronald Colman, who was nominated for an Oscar for his performance in the film.
Two years earlier she had married John Marion Fox, from whom she would divorce shortly before taking part in her first film.
The 1930s were especially good for Joan Bennett, as she landed quite a few roles in a large number of films, among which we can remember, Moby Dick, “Scontland Yard”or “Between two fires”, 1932. In this year she married again, this time with the screenwriter Gene Markey, a fact that helped her get a greater number of roles, with directors and actors of great prestige at that time.
He appeared in Little Women, by George Cukor, “Me and my girl” Y “Redemptive kiss” by Raoul Walsh, “Big Brown Eyes”, with Cary Grant or “The fugitive from the tropics”. The latter caused her to be cataloged as a “fatal woman” of the cinema.
In the 1940s, and after divorcing her second husband, she married Walter Wanger, a well-known producer at the time. Shortly after the director Fritz Lang hired her to intervene in films that today can be said since they are part of the history of cinema, such as “The trapped man”, The Woman in the Picture and Perversity, with Edward G. Robinson, and “Secret behind the door”.
Already in the 1950s, director Vicent Minelli offered him a role in the film “The father of the bride”, of which a few years later he made a continuation with the film “The father is a grandfather”, along with Elizabeth Taylor and Spencer Tracy.
In 1951, her husband Walter, in a fit of jealousy, shot the actress’s agent. This one, whose name was Jennings Lang, was shot in the groin. After this incident, Joan retired from the cinema, to focus on the world of theater and the small screen.
In 1965 he separated from Wanger, with whom he had a daughter named Stephanie. A year later she was nominated for the Emmy Awards for Best Actress for “Dark Shadows”
In 1978 she married David Wilde, with whom she remained for the rest of her life, until the day of his death, which took place on December 7, 1990 in Scarsdale, New York.
Other Joan Bennet titles were “Power”, “Trafalgar”, “The song of the Ritz”, “Crazy That Way”, “Doctors wives” , “Blackmail”, “The man who came back for his head “, “Private worlds”, “The iron mask”, “A woman on the beach”, “The Wife Takes a Flyer”, “Lives without direction”, “The Trapped Man” or “The scar”, among many.