Research Catalog

Title

The Bennetts : an acting family / Brian Kellow.

Author

Kellow, Brian.

Publication

Lexington : University Press of Kentucky, [2004], ©2004.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xiv, 530 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits; 24 cm

Summary

"The Bennetts chronicles the rise of a royal family of stage and screen. Brian Kellow writes a saga that begins with Richard Bennett, a small-town Indiana roughneck who grew up to be one of the bright lights of the New York stage during the early twentieth century. After uncertain beginnings in Midwestern stock theaters, Richard rose to prominence under the guidance of producer Charles Frohman and later performed in landmark plays such as Leonid Andreyev's He Who Gets Slapped and Eugene O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon." "Richard had three daughters, Constance, Joan, and Barbara, all of whom became actresses. His fame was eventually eclipsed by that of Constance and Joan, who both went to Hollywood in the 1920s and found major success there. Constance became the highest-paid actress of the early 1930s, earning as much as $30,000 a week in melodramas. Later, she brilliantly reinvented herself as a comedienne in the classic comedy Topper, starring opposite Cary Grant." "After a slow start as a blonde ingenue, Joan dyed her hair black and became one of the screen's great temptresses in films such as Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street and Jean Renoir's The Woman on the Beach. She also starred in lighter fare such as Father of the Bride and, in the 1960s, gained a new generation of fans when she appeared in the gothic daytime television serial Dark Shadows." "Constance and Joan were among Hollywood's biggest and most glamorous stars, but their personal lives were often turbulent. In 1943, Constance became entangled in a highly publicized court battle with the family of her millionaire ex-husband, Philip Plant, concerning the parentage of their son, Peter. Less than a decade later, Joan's husband, producer Walter Wanger, shot her lover and agent, Jennings Lang, in broad daylight, sparking one of the biggest Hollywood scandals of the 1950s. Kellow also explores the life of the third Bennett sister, Barbara, whose promising beginnings as a dancer gave way to a rocky marriage to singer Morton Downey and a steady decline into alcoholism."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

• Bennett, Joan, 1910-1990
• Bennett, Richard, 1873-1944
• Bennett, Constance, 1904-1965
• Actors > United States > Biography
• Bennett, Barbara, 1906-1958

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [509]-513) and index.

ISBN

0813123291 (alk. paper)

LCCN

2004020805

OCLC

• ocm56482237
• SCSB-5105375

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries