Stage Name: Joan Bennett
Birth Name: Joan Geraldine Bennett
Occupation: Stage, Movie, TV Actress / Pinup Model
Years Active: 1916–1982
Notable Works: Starring for five year run of Dark Shadows (1966-1971); but over her lifetime she worked on 78 feature-length films which include three bit parts in silents and 6 TV-movies.
Date/Place Birth: February 27, 1910(1910-02-27);Palisades Park, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Date/Death/Cause: Joan Bennett died December 7, 1990 at age 80 from a heart attack at her home in Scarsdale, New York. She is interred in Pleasant View Cemetery, Lyme, Connecticut, with her parents. Scarsdale, New York, U.S.
Spouse(s) & Children: Joan Bennett was married 4 times and had 3 children: 1st John Marion Fox married 1926 and divorced 1928 had 1 child. Second husband Gene Markey in 1932 and divorced 1937 no children; third husband Walter Wanger married on January 12, 1940 in Phoenix, then divorced in September 1965 in Mexico; they had two children together, Stephanie Wanger (born June 26, 1943) and Shelley Wanger (born July 4, 1948); 4th and last marriage to David Wilde in 1978 lasted until her death1990. Marriage Summary: John Marion Fox (1926–1928 divorced) 1 child; Gene Markey (1932–1937 divorced); Walter Wanger (1940–1965 divorced) 2 children; David Wilde (1978–1990 her death)
Short Biography: Joan Bennett was born into an entertainment family so she had an early start but it was a struggle for her to establish herself as a stage and serious film actress. She was not as popular a WWII pinup or as successful an actress as her sister Constance Bennett but she changed her natural blonde hair color to dark brunette and her on screen persona to hot during the war time which helped some, Trade Winds (1938) then in the early 1940s Bennett appeared in a trio of films directed by Fritz Lang: Man Hunt (1941), The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street, these films established her as a film noir femme fatale. She before movies had sound and spend her entire lifetime in entertainment and her career spanned a lot of change, her greatest achievements were probably on the TV daytime soap opera set as a cast member of Dark Shadows for its entire five year run, from 1966 until 1971.