Book description
" The Bennetts: An Acting Family is a chronicle of one of the
royal families of stage and screen. The saga begins with Richard
Bennett, a small-town Indiana roughneck who grew up to be 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
daughters, Constance and Joan, who went to Hollywood in the 1920s and
found major success there. Constance became the highest-paid actress
of the early 1930s, earning as much as ,000 a week in melodramas.
Later she reinvented herself as a comedienne in the classic comedy
Topper, with Cary Grant.. After a slow start as a blonde ingenue, Joan
dyed her hair black and became one of the screen's great temptresses
in films such as Scarlet Street. She also starred in such lighter fare
as Father of the Bride. In the 1960s, Joan gained a new generation of
fans when she appeared in the gothic daytime television serial Dark
Shadows. The Bennetts is also the story of another Bennett 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. Brian Kellow, features editor
of Opera News magazine, is the coauthor of Can't Help Singing: The
Life of Eileen Farrell. He lives in New York and Connecticut.
"A fabulously written page-turner about one of the most
glamorous acting families of the 20th century by a writer who knows
how to pen a compelling narrative while dishing the dirt." --
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