Joan Bennett

Joan Geraldine Bennett (February 27, 1910 – December 7, 1990) was an American stage, film and television actress. Besides acting on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 motion pictures from the era of silent movies, well into the sound era. She is possibly best-remembered for her film noir femme fatale roles in director Fritz Lang's movies such as The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945).

Bennett had three distinct phases to her long and successful career, first as a winsome blonde ingenue, then as a sensuous brunette femme fatale (with looks that movie magazines often compared to those of Hedy Lamarr), and finally as a warmhearted wife/mother figure.

In 1951, Bennett's screen career was marred by scandal after her third husband, film producer Walter Wanger, shot and injured her agent Jennings Lang. Wanger suspected that Lang and Bennett were having an affair, a charge which she adamantly denied. Bennett married four times.

In the 1960s, she achieved success for her portrayal of Elizabeth Collins Stoddard on TV's Dark Shadows, for which she received an Emmy nomination (1968). For her final movie role, as Madame Blanc in Dario Argento's cult horror film Suspiria (1977), she received a Saturn Award nomination. In her New York Times obituary she was said to be "...one of the most underrated actresses of her time".

List of Playboy Playmates of 1985

The following is a list of Playboy Playmates of 1985. Playboy magazine names its Playmate of the Month each month throughout the year.

January

Joan Bennett (born August 30, 1964 in Chicago, Illinois) is a former American model. She was Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for January 1985.

February

Cherie Witter (born October 22, 1963) is an American model and actress. She was chosen as Playboy's Playmate of the Month for February 1985.

March

Donna Smith (born March 15, 1960 in Portland, Oregon) is an American model. She was the March 1985 Playboy Playmate of the Month.

April

Cindy Brooks (born November 5, 1951) is an American model and actress. She was chosen as Playboy's Playmate of the Month in April 1985. She briefly held a regular role on Days of Our Lives in 1989.

May

Kathleen Ann Shower (born March 8, 1953) is an American model and actress. Known as Kathy Shower she is Playboy's Playmate of the Month for May 1985 and Playmate of the Year for 1986.

Following Playboy, Shower had an acting career, mainly within the action adventure (American Kickboxer 2, The Further Adventures of Tennessee Buck) & erotic thriller genres (Boundaries, LA Goddess and Velvet Dreams). as well as TV work including a continuing role in Santa Barbara. In 2009, Shower completed an independent film entitled Kathy Shower: Playmate Model Mom.

Joan Bennett (literary scholar)

Joan Bennett (1896–1986), also known as Joan Frankau and born Aline Frankau, was a Cambridge literary scholar and critic. She was among the "constellation of critics" called by the defence in the Lady Chatterley Trial of D. H. Lawrence.

Life and career

Bennett was the daughter of London cigar importer Arthur Frankau (1849-1904) and writer Julia Frankau (1859-1916). Though she was known as Joan throughout her life, she was christened Aline. She married the Cambridge literary historian Henry Stanley Bennett (1889-1972) in 1920.

As a don at Girton College, Cambridge, Bennett wrote one of the first critical studies of Virginia Woolf.

As one of the expert witnesses in the Lady Chatterley Trial, she helped counter the arguments of the prosecution by confirming Lawrence's reputation as a novelist, that the work was more than a description of sexual encounters, and that Lawrence's repeated use of ‘four-letter words’ were justified by literary intent. It is interesting to note that Bennett's mother had earlier been credited by Mrs Belloc Lowndes with having been "one of the very few to recognise the genius of D. H. Lawrence".