The Bennetts
An Acting Family
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
“An engrossing new page turner” about one of old Hollywood’s royal families: “theater people don't get more interesting, and it's a true tale well told" (Hollywood Reporter).
In the early 1930s, Constance Bennett was the highest paid star in Hollywood, famous for dramatic roles before reinventing herself in the classic comedy Topper, starring opposite Cary Grant. Her sister Joan played the femme fatale in films like Scarlet Street and also starred in lighter films like Father of the Bride. Though their names are not well known today, the Bennett family is one of the most storied families in Hollywood history.
The saga begins with Richard Bennett, who left small-town Indiana to become one of the bright lights of the New York stage during the early twentieth century. In time, however, Richard's fame was eclipsed by that of his two acting daughters. But the Bennett family also includes another sister, Barbara, whose promising beginnings as a dancer gave way to a turbulent marriage to singer Morton Downey and a steady decline into alcoholism.
Constance and Joan were among Hollywood's biggest stars, but their personal lives were anything but serene. In 1943, Constance became entangled in a highly publicized court battle with the family of her millionaire ex-husband, and in 1951, Joan's husband, producer Walter Wanger, shot her lover in broad daylight, sparking one of the biggest Hollywood scandals of the 1950s.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
For a while in the early 1930s, Constance Bennett was the highest paid actress in Hollywood; younger sister Joan was an equally prominent star who worked with A-list directors like George Cukor and Fritz Lang. Though the two are not as widely remembered today as other film stars of the period, Kellow (Can't Help Singing: The Life of Eileen Farrell) goes a long way toward addressing the oversight, beginning with their father, Richard, one of the most respected theater actors of the early 20th century and an early proponent of Eugene O'Neill. The family biography also reveals the life of the forgotten middle sister, Barbara, who never made it in show business and slid into acute alcoholism. Kellow's closely critical evaluations of their performances can verge on the cruel, as in the comparison of Constance to "a seasoned drag queen" in her final film appearance, and his judgmental tone occasionally extends to the characters' personal lives, though admirably less so than in other celebrity biographies. In most ways, Kellow is a respectfully restrained biographer, addressing even the most potentially lurid scandals like Joan's husband shooting her agent because he suspected them of having an affair with a sense of his subjects' dignity. 32 pages of b&w photos.
