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Joan Bennett: Career
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[D]espite her success in dramatic roles, Bennett ... acted successfully in more sympathetic comedy roles. At age 40, and still a very beautiful, young-looking woman, she was very charming in the box-office success Father of the Bride, portraying Spencer Tracy's wife and Elizabeth Taylor's mother. Unlike many other beautiful actresses, Bennett decided to begin playing "mothers" and older parts before she actually needed to. She also took chances in her career and varied her roles, dividing her time among costume epics, melodramas, and tearjerkers such as Max Ophüls's The Reckless Moment and Douglas Sirk's There's Always Tomorrow. In the latter film, Bennett played a boring housewife married to Fred MacMurray who feels stifled by her presence and that of their children and contemplates leaving them for a former sweetheart.
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Apart from these Joan Bennett was ... a part of Jean Renoir’s “The Women on the Beach” and in Max Ophuls’s “The Reckless Moment”. She also played in “Father of the Bride” and its sequel, “Father’s Little Dividend” where she was the wife of Spencer Tracy and mother of Elizabeth Taylor. Unfortunately, the actress has been subjected to various rumors which have affected her career to some extent.
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Bennett made her first film appearance in 1918 in an uncredited part and appeared in a few silent films while a child. She married at the age of 16, and when this marriage ended two years later, resumed her acting career. Contracted to 20th Century Fox she appeared as a blonde (her natural color) ingenue in a several films including Puttin' on the Ritz in 1930 and Me and My Gal in 1932, before leaving this studio to appear in Little Women (1933). She was not taken seriously as an actress and struggled to establish herself. Her task was further complicated by the rapid rise to fame of her sister Constance, who at this time was one of Hollywood's most successful and popular actresses, and with whom she was unfavourably compared.
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Joan went through two phases in her film career. During the thirties, resembling a golden-haired porcelain doll, Joan usually played the innocent ingénue. The most memorable of these roles was her portrayal of Amy in Little Women (1933).
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In the early years of her movie career, Joan was a bleach-blonde, because publicists and producers wanted her to resemble her movie star sister, Constance. But in for the film Trade Winds (1938), producer Walter Wanger (later her husband), put her in a brunette wig and transformed her career.
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