Barbara Jane Bennett (August 13, 1906 – August 8, 1958) was an American stage and film actress and dancer.
Family

Born in
Palisades Park, New Jersey, Barbara Bennett was the second of three daughters born to actor
Richard Bennett and his wife, actress
Adrienne Morrison. Her maternal grandfather was the stage actor
Lewis Morrison. Her older sister
Constance and her younger sister
Joan had successful film careers. The girls attended the
Chapin School with the actress
Jane Wyatt.
Personal life
Bennett married three times and had five children. On January 28, 1929, she married
tenor
A tenor is a type of male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. Composers typically write music for this voice in the range from the second B below m ...
Morton Downey. The couple had four biological children, including son
Morton Downey Jr., and adopted a fifth child, Michael.
They divorced in June 1941. Bennett later married actor
Addison Randall, a popular romantic star and
singing cowboy at the time. On July 16, 1945, Randall died after suffering a
myocardial infarction
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...
and falling from a horse during the filming of ''
The Royal Mounted Rides Again''. Bennett married Laurent Surprenant in 1954. The couple moved to
Montreal
Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
in 1957 and remained together until her death the following year.
Career

Bennett was an actress on
Broadway as well as a film actress (1916-1930). In 1931, she co-authored the
waltz
The waltz ( , meaning "to roll or revolve") is a ballroom dance, ballroom and folk dance, in triple (3/4 time, time), performed primarily in closed position. Along with the ländler and allemande, the waltz was sometimes referred to by the ...
''
Dreaming of My Indiana Sweetheart'' with
Bill Hansen.
Bennett later worked as a literary representative for producer
Walter Wanger, who was married to her sister Joan. In that position, Bennett scouted best-sellers and the like as potential movie properties, especially for her sister Joan.
Death
On August 8, 1958, five days before her 52nd birthday, Bennett died after what the media described as an unidentified "long illness" in Montreal.
Over the course of her life, Bennett attempted suicide four times. As the circumstances surrounding herself were vague and Bennett's sister Joan refused to discuss the details of her death, rumors arose that Bennett had finally succeeded in ending her life.
In her 1982 memoirs ''
Lulu in Hollywood'', longtime friend and actress
Louise Brooks wrote of Bennett, "Barbara made a career of her emotions. Periods of work or marriage were terminated by her frightening, abandoned laughter of despair and failure. Only her death, in 1958, achieved in her fifth suicide attempt, could be termed a success."
She was buried at Burtonville Union Cemetery in
Lacolle, Quebec. A memorial service was later held at the
Church of the Good Shepherd in
Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. A notable and historic suburb of Los Angeles, it is located just southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Beverly Hil ...
.
Broadway credits
Filmography
References
Sources
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External links
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Portrait of Bennett by Nickolas Muray
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bennett, Barbara
1906 births
1958 suicides
20th-century American actresses
Actresses from New Jersey
American expatriate actresses in Canada
American female dancers
Dancers from New Jersey
American people of English descent
American people of Jewish descent
American people of Spanish descent
American film actresses
American silent film actresses
American stage actresses
People from Palisades Park, New Jersey
Suicides in Quebec
Chapin School (Manhattan) alumni
20th-century American dancers
Actors from Bergen County, New Jersey