Happy Birthday, Joan Bennett (1910-1990)

Eighteen-year-old Joan Bennett had intended to avoid the Bennett tradition of acting but, divorced and with a child to support, she accepted a role in her father's play "Jarnegan", then her first leading film role in Bulldog Drummond (1929). Her popularity growing, she made 14 films under a Fox contract, mostly as vapid blonde ingenues; the best of these, Me and My Gal (1932), as a wisecracking waitress. Leaving Fox to appear in Little Women (1933), she then signed a personal contract with independent producer Walter Wanger, who managed her career from then on.

with Anthony Bushell in Disraeli (1929)

Week Ends Only (1932)


Joan Bennett and Ben Lyon in Week Ends Only (1932)


Wild Girl (1932)


Wild Girl (1932)



Little Women (1933)


Little Women (1933)



with George Raft in She Couldn't Take It (1935)


with Warner Baxter in Vogues of 1938 (1937)


Artists and Models Abroad (1938)


Artists and Models Abroad (1938)


Artists and Models Abroad (1938)


Trade Winds (1938)

In Trade Winds (1938), Joan plays murder suspect Kay Kerrigan, who flees the police and is pursued around the world by detective Fredric March. To disguise herself, Kay dies her blonde hair brunette. Joan's new hair color was meant to be a one-time gimmick, but Trade Winds was a box office hit and Joan's dark, sultry new look a sensation. "After that film," Joan said, "everybody liked me in dark hair so I turned my hair dark and got much better parts." Joan Bennett remained brunette, both personally and professionally, for the rest of her life.

Trade Winds (1938) blonde


Trade Winds (1938) brunette


with Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in Green Hell (1940)


on the set of Green Hell (1940)


Confirm or Deny (1941)


Confirm or Deny (1941)


The Wife Takes a Flyer (1942)


with Franchot Tone in The Wife Takes a Flyer (1942)


hair and costume tests for Nob Hill (1945)


hair and costume tests for Nob Hill (1945)


with Spencer Tracy in Father of the Bride (1950)


with Spencer Tracy in Father of the Bride (1950)


The Guy Who Came Back (1951)


Paul Douglas, Linda Darnell and Joan Bennett in
The Guy Who Came Back (1951)

Joan made her finest films in the 1940s with director Fritz Lang: Man Hunt (1941), The Woman in the Window (1944), Scarlet Street (1945) and Secret Beyond the Door... (1948). Under his tutelage, she became the queen of film-noir femme fatales.

Man Hunt (1941)


Man Hunt (1941)


The Woman in the Window (1944)


The Woman in the Window (1944)


The Woman in the Window (1944)


with Edward G. Robinson in The Woman in the Window (1944)


with Edward G. Robinson in The Woman in the Window (1944)



with Dan Duryea in The Woman in the Window (1944)


candid on the set of The Woman in the Window (1944)


Scarlet Street (1945)


Scarlet Street (1945)


with Dan Duryea in Scarlet Street (1945)


with director Fritz Lang in the set of Scarlet Street (1945)


Scarlet Street (1945)


Secret Beyond the Door... (1948)


Secret Beyond the Door... (1948)


with Michael Redgrave in Secret Beyond the Door... (1948)


Secret Beyond the Door... (1948)


Going over costume designs for
Secret Beyond the Door... (1948)


with Michael Redgrave on the set of
Secret Beyond the Door... (1948)


with director Fritz Lang in the set of
Secret Beyond the Door... (1948)

Other films noir in the Joan Bennett resume included The Woman on the Beach (1947), Hollow Triumph (1948), The Reckless Moment (1949) and Highway Dragnet (1954).

The Woman on the Beach (1947)


Hollow Triumph (1948)


The Reckless Moment (1949)


Highway Dragnet (1954)


with Wanda Hendrix and Richard Conte in Highway Dragnet (1954)

Joan's career had a revival in the 1960s, when she played Elizabeth Collins Stoddard in the long running gothic horror soap opera "Dark Shadows" (1966-1971) on TV. The series achieved a cult following and she is quoted as saying "I feel positively like a Beatle, " in response to the attention she was getting with the success of the TV series.