Guest blogger Rory B. writes:
I don’t know why it has taken me forever to blog about my favorite classic star, Joan Bennett. Do I think she was the most talented? No. The most beautiful? No. The most magical? No.
Joan Bennett is my favorite because when I was in middle school, I mailed her a fan letter to her address in Scarsdale, New York. I also mailed a letter to Olivia deHavilland in Paris and I think Maureen O’Hara in St. Croix. Anyway Bennett is the only one who replied. I received her autographed photo w/my name six months after I wrote her. (In pubescent years six months is like three years). I was so happy.
I don’t remember why I wrote to her. I think I had seen her in The Son of Monte Cristo and Father of the Bride. I also had already been exposed to Dark Shadows. I was still unaware she was a film noir queen in such films as The Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street. She also starred in the cult horror classic Suspiria. Joan Bennett worked with a lot of European directors including Fritz Lang, Jean Renoir, Max Ophuls, and Dario Argento .
I’m positive my autographed photo was signed directly from Bennett and not a secretary because I read the biography, The Bennetts: An Acting Family, and in it author Brian Kellow states in the last decade of her life, she enjoyed watching Jeopardy and answering fan mail.
Rory has been a classic movie fan since childhood. She is an aspiring actress with ambitions to teach classic film courses to younger generations (meaning under 80 years old). Visit her websites at Bunnybun’s Classic Movie Blog and Classic Ethnic Hollywood.