Constance Bennett

Sleek, stylish blonde star with an intriguingly cool quality, one of Hollywood's highest-paid performers during the depths of the Depression in the early 1930s. Bennett entered films at age 17 and became a leading lady of Hollywood silents, perhaps the best-known of which is the story of three young women and their romantic travails, "Sally, Irene and Mary" (1925). Bennett's marriage to a well-heeled member of the international set resulted in a three-year absence from the screen, but she regained her star status with "This Thing Called Love" (1929) and went on to specialize in polished, witty comedies and romantic melodramas. A fashion trendsetter in her heyday, Bennett brought both a glossy sophistication and a sometimes wisecracking approachability to her comedies of sin and seduction among society's upper crust (e.g. George Cukor's delightful "Our Betters" 1933). Her romantic melodramas, meanwhile, were of the "confession" sub-genre popular at the time, as her heroines suffered nobly after indulging in (or being thought guilty of) illicit affairs. One of her finest films from her peak glamour days at RKO was the early Cukor dry-run for "A Star Is Born", "What Price Hollywood?" (1932), with...

Sleek, stylish blonde star with an intriguingly cool quality, one of Hollywood's highest-paid performers during the depths of the Depression in the early 1930s. Bennett entered films at age 17 and became a leading lady of Hollywood silents, perhaps the best-known of which is the story of three young women and their romantic travails, "Sally, Irene and Mary" (1925). Bennett's marriage to a well-heeled member of the international set resulted in a three-year absence from the screen, but she regained her star status with "This Thing Called Love" (1929) and went on to specialize in polished, witty comedies and romantic melodramas.

A fashion trendsetter in her heyday, Bennett brought both a glossy sophistication and a sometimes wisecracking approachability to her comedies of sin and seduction among society's upper crust (e.g. George Cukor's delightful "Our Betters" 1933). Her romantic melodramas, meanwhile, were of the "confession" sub-genre popular at the time, as her heroines suffered nobly after indulging in (or being thought guilty of) illicit affairs. One of her finest films from her peak glamour days at RKO was the early Cukor dry-run for "A Star Is Born", "What Price Hollywood?" (1932), with Bennett in the aspiring star role later essayed by Janet Gaynor, Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand.

Bennett's star status began to slip a bit in the mid-30s as the "confession" film declined and screwball comedies and other kinds of soap operas began to take their place. Free-lancing, Bennett rode high for a time in the lavish and enjoyable musical comedy, "Moulin Rouge" (1934), in which she did a surprisingly good job singing "Boulevard of Broken Dreams". She also paired well with emerging Hollywood king Clark Gable in "After Office Hours" (1935). "Ladies in Love" (1936), however, soft-pedalled her in favor of other actresses, but at least Bennett's best-remembered film, "Topper" (1937), in which she and Cary Grant shone as playful ghosts George and Marion Kerby, did briefly stem the tide of her declining stardom.

Bennett made her stage debut in Noel Coward's "Easy Virtue" in 1940 and continued playing leads ("Service de Luxe," 1938; "Madame Sin," 1942) in films of gradually declining importance until the mid-1940s. She also began playing colorful second leads and supporting roles, performing well in Michael Curtiz's noir mystery "The Unsuspected" (1947) and stealing scenes in "Two-Faced Woman" (1941) from the unhappily cast Greta Garbo. Bennett acted primarily in the theater from the early 1950s on, but also performed occasionally in live TV of that period. Her final film, "Madame X" (1966), with a stony Bennett offering a rather outrageous performance as Lana Turner's bitchy mother-in-law, was released after her death from a cerebral hemorrhage. Daughter of famed actors Richard Bennett and Adrienne Morrison, and sister of film actresses Joan and Barbara Bennett, she was married to Hollywood "Latin lover" Gilbert Roland, her leading man in several films of the 30s, from 1941 to 1945.

CAST: (feature film)