TCM Birthday Tribute: Constance Bennett (Daytime)

Constance Bennett, who rose to fame in movies of the 1920s and '30s, came from a celebrated theatrical family. Her father, Richard Bennett, was a star of the stage and silent films who became a character actor in sound movies. Her mother, Adrienne Morrison, was a stage actress of the early 1900s; and Constance's younger sisters, Barbara and Joan, became film actresses like Constance. Barbara Bennett's career in silent films, beginning as a child, was brief and minor. But Joan Bennett made her mark in movies and is probably remembered better today than Constance.

Constance, however, was a major Hollywood star during her heyday, when she was considered a great beauty and the epitome of style and sophistication. She was often at the top of popularity polls and at one point was named the No. 1 box-office star in the country. For a time, Bennett specialized in domestic melodramas where she played wronged women, unwed mothers and the like - but later found her true niche in sophisticated comedy. A fan magazine of the 1930s declared that "Fans rave over her elegance, her perfect manners, her personality. Her voice [is] intriguing to a degree...the last word in sophistication."

Constance Campbell Bennett was born in New York City on October 22, 1904 and was educated at a convent. Because her father was involved in movies when she was growing up, she was accustomed to being on film sets and made her debut in his film The Valley of Decision (1916). Bennett's break in movies came when she met producer Samuel Goldwyn socially and he cast her in Cytherea (1924). After a few more films, she became a star by playing a flapper opposite cowboy Owen Moore in Paramount's Code of the West (1925). Bennett's first talkie was This Thing Called Love (1929). Then came her peak in the 1930s, the decade from which the movies in the TCM Birthday Tribute are drawn. (The first six on the list are considered pre-Code films.)

Three Faces East (1930) is a spy film from Warner Bros., with Bennett as a World War I espionage agent on a mission to England. 

Born to Love (1931), from RKO Pathé, also set in England during WWI, is a melodrama starring Bennet as a nurse who has a child by one man (Joel McCrea) but marries another (Paul Cavanagh).

RKO's The Common Law (1931) again costars Joel McCrea. The duo play American lovers in Paris whose happiness is threatened by the fact that she has been the mistress of a wealthy Frenchman (Lew Cody).

Rockabye (1932), a David O. Selznick production directed by George Cukor, is another vehicle for the Bennett/McCrea team. In this one, she plays a Broadway actress and he is the author of a play in which she plans to star. Again, matters are complicated by the other men in her life (Walter Pidgeon and Paul Lukas).

Bed of Roses (1933), once again with McCrea in the costarring spot, is an RKO comedy derived from a play by W. Somerset Maugham and set in Louisiana. Bennett plays a prostitute with no qualms about robbing her customers, and McCrea is a barge skipper who falls for her without knowing about her history.

In Our Betters (1933), another Selznick/Cukor collaboration, Bennett plays an American heiress involved in the amorous adventures of the British upper-crust society into which she has married. This sophisticated romp features Anita Louise, Gilbert Roland, Charles Starrett and Alan Mowbray.

Topper (1937) marked the sublime combination of Constance Bennett (top-billed) and Cary Grant as a mischievous pair of married ghosts who hilariously haunt a stuffy old friend (Roland Young). Produced by Hal Roach and released through MGM, this sparkling comedy costars Billie Burke and Alan Mowbray and was directed by Norman Z. McLeod.

Topper Takes a Trip (1938) is the sequel in which Grant is missing (except in flashbacks) but the director and other leading players - including Bennett, Burke and Mowbray - return. In this installment, Bennett's character must earn her way into heaven by performing the good deed of reuniting Topper and his wife, who are on the verge of divorce.

Merrily We Live (1938), another comedy hit from Roach/MGM, has a My Man Godfrey (1936) vibe. Bennett stars as the daughter of a family that takes in tramps and trains them as servants. Brian Aherne costars as a hobo who gets hired as chauffeur, and the cast also includes Oscar-nominated Billie Burke, Alan Mowbray, Patsy Kelly and Ann Dvorak. McLeod again directed.

Constance Bennett worked on through the 1940s, although her box-office appeal had lessened and she gradually moved into supporting roles. At MGM, she had under-the-title billing in Greta Garbo's last film, Two-Faced Woman (1941) and took her revenge by stealing the notices.

Bennett had a reputation for being independent, outspoken, and, at times, difficult. According to one fan magazine, "Temperament, plus a rather hectic personal life, were responsible for hampering her professional success." Bennett herself acknowledged, "I know what they say about me... I know that I am a devil. I'm brutal. I'm mean. And I'm sorry if that's what they think, but I am as I am, and I can't change."

Nevertheless, during World War II Bennett worked tirelessly to support the war effort and she contributed to the Berlin Airlift after the war. During the 1940s, she also developed her own line of clothing and toiletries. In the 1950s, Bennett did television and some stage work, including a tour in Auntie Mame. She had a pleasant supporting role in Fox's As Young as You Feel (1951) with Monty Woolley, Thelma Ritter and Marilyn Monroe. At the time, Bennett famously quipped of Monroe: "There's a broad with a big career behind her."

Bennett's final theatrical film was the melodramatic Madame X (1966), in which she played Lana Turner's mother-in-law and had some observers remarking that she looked as young as the film's star. Shortly after Madame X was completed, on July 24, 1965, at the age of 60, Bennett died of a cerebral hemorrhage. She had married five times: Chester Hirst Moorhead, Philip Morgan Plant, Henry de la Falaise, Gilbert Roland and John Theron Coulter, to whom she was wed at the time of her death.

Because Coulter was a brigadier general, and because of Bennett's own contributions to the military, she was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.