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Joan Bennett
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Born in New Jersey in February 1910, glamorous actress Joan Bennett was the daughter of stage and screen actor Richard Bennett. Unlike her sister Constance Bennett, she initally lacked an interest in performing onstage. However, when she divorced her first husband in the late 1920s, she turned to the family profession as a means to support her herself and her infant daughter. Surprisingly, Bennett found good roles quickly and became well known in a string of 1930s films. Bennett continued to work after her second marriage to writer Gene Markey and after giving birth to a second daughter. Filmgoers sometimes confused Joan Bennett with lookalike sister Constance Bennett, who was arguably a bigger star in the 1930s.
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Joan Bennett never had any desire to become an actress, she wished only to be a wife and mother. Joan married Jack Fox at the age of 16, became a mother at 17 and was divorced by the time she was 18 years old. In order to support herself and her baby, Joan decided to try acting until something better came along.
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Though she made an appearance as a child in one of her father's films, Joan Bennett did not originally intend to pursue acting as a profession. Honoring her wishes, her father bundled her off to finishing school in Versailles. Alas, her impulsive first marriage at 16 ended in divorce, leaving her a single mother in dire need of an immediate source of income.
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In this zany boudoir romp, newlyweds Joan Bennett and George Brent find their marriage in jeopardy when their next door neighbor, concert singer Mischa Auer, fixes his roving eye on Bennett. With Glenda Farrell, Margaret Hamilton. 85 min.
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Joan Bennett (nee Frankau) was educated at Wycombe Abbey School and in Hamburg and Paris and came to Girton to read Modern Languages then English, 1916-19. She was a University Lecturer in English 1936-63 and a Fellow of Girton and College Lecturer in English 1953-63 (Life Fellow 1963-86). She was a supervisor in English for Girton and other Cambridge colleges over many years and published on the Metaphysical poets as well as on George Eliot and Virginia Woolf, amongst others. She married Stanley Bennett in 1920.
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Just one year after giving birth to her daughter Shelley, Joan Bennett became a grandmother at the age of 39 when her eldest daughter Diana became a mother. Marlene Dietrich, consistently referred to as "The World's Most Glamorous Grandmother" sent Joan a telegram saying "Thanks for taking the heat off."
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Joan Bennett