Horror Extreme Movie Catalog

'Joan Geraldine Bennett' (February 27, 1910 – December 7, 1990) was an Emmy-nominated American actress. Besides acting on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 motion pictures from the era of silent movies through the advent of the talkies. She is possibly best-remembered for her film noir femme fatale roles in movies by director Fritz Lang. Bennett had three distinct phases to her long and successful career, first as a winsome blonde ingenue, then as a sensuous brunette femme fatale and, finally, as a warmhearted wife/mother figure. Her screen career was damaged by scandal in the early 1950s, after her husband shot and injured her agent, with whom she was allegedly having an affair. 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. For her final movie role, as Madame Blanc in Suspiria (1977), she received a Saturn Award nomination.