Enid Bennett

Enid Bennett

Birth : 1893-07-15, York, Western Australia, Australia

Death : 1969-05-14

History

From Wikipedia Born in York, Western Australia, Enid Bennett started her film acting career in 1916, first starring in Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford, with two other films that same year. She married American director Sidney Franklin early in her career, but they were divorced shortly thereafter. In 1917, she starred in five films, the most important of which was The Little Brother opposite William Garwood. That film brought her to the attention of studios and led to an increasing number of acting roles. From 1918 to 1921, she starred in twenty-three films, becoming well known and recognizable as an actress. In 1918 she married director Fred Niblo, who later directed the second film version of Ben Hur. In 1922, she starred in only three films, but one of those became her most famous role, the female lead of "Maid Marian" in Robin Hood with Douglas Fairbanks. From 1923 to 1928, she starred in only ten films, as her career had slowed to a crawl. She was a mother by that time, as she and Niblo eventually had three children together. In 1929, her brother Alexander Bennett married actress Frances Lee. The wedding was attended by some of Hollywood's biggest names, including Gloria Swanson and Greta Garbo. That year Bennett starred in only one film, Good Medicine, opposite Edward Everett Horton. Bennett's sisters Marjorie (1896-1982) and Catherine (1901–1978) were also Hollywood film actresses. She made a semi-successful transition to sound films, but saw fewer roles come her way. From 1931 to 1941 she had roles in only seven films, the last of which was uncredited. She retired after 1941, eventually residing with her family in Malibu, California, where she died in 1969 from a heart attack, aged 75.

Profile

Enid Bennett

Movies

The Big Store
Clerk (uncredited)
A detective is hired to protect the life of a singer, who has recently inherited a department store, from the store's crooked manager.
Strike Up the Band
Mrs. Morgan
Jimmy and Mary get a group of kids together to play in a school orchestra. A huge contest between schools is coming up and they have a hard time raising money to go to Chicago for the contest.
Meet Dr. Christian
Anne Hewitt
The first of six films in the "Dr. Christian" series, starring Jean Hersholt as a small town doctor trying to convince local officials to approve funds for a new hospital.
Intermezzo: A Love Story
Greta
A concert violinist becomes charmed with his daughter's talented piano teacher. When he invites her to go on tour with him, they make beautiful music away from the concert hall as well. He soon leaves his wife so the two can go off together.
Sooky
Helen Skinner
Skippy, son of Dr. Herbert and Mrs. Skinner, adamantly stands by his poor friend, Sooky Wayne, who lives in Shantytown with his sickly mother. The Boone Boys, a boys' club that costs thirty dollars to join and has uniforms that Sooky admires, refuses to admit him because he is poor. Sooky and Skippy form their own club called the Beagle Boys.
Waterloo Bridge
Mary Cronin Wetherby
In World War I London, Myra is an American out-of-work chorus girl making ends meet by picking up men on Waterloo Bridge. During a Zeppelin air raid she meets Roy, a naive young American who enlisted in the Canadian army. After they fall for each other, Roy tricks Myra into visiting his family, who live in a country estate outside London, his mother having remarried to a retired British Major. Myra is reluctant to continue the relationship with Roy, he not aware of her past.
Skippy
Ellen Skinner
Skippy, the mischievous son of a wealthy doctor, meets Sooky in poverty-ridden Shantytown, and together they try to save Sooky's pet from a cruel dogcatcher.
The Flag: A Story Inspired by the Tradition of Betsy Ross
Betsy Ross
George Washington, commander of revolutionary American forces, ends a squabble among the colonies as to under which flag the Americans will fight the British by recommending a new flag for all the colonies. He asks Betsy Ross to design and create the first flag. Meanwhile, British officer Brandon has crossed enemy lines in order to visit secretly his wife, who boards in the same house as Betsy Ross. Ross helps Mrs. Brandon hide her husband, but then Washington himself discovers the hidden enemy and must decide whether love or the rules of war shall prevail.
The Wrong Mr. Wright
Henrietta
Scott Sidney silent mistaken identity romantic comedy about a timid man, named Seymour White, who creates a new kind of ladies' lingerie. When he goes to Atlantic City to meet his lost sweetheart, he discovers she has grown fat and ugly, so he pretends to be "Mr. Wright". All kinds of comic hilarity ensue. This is a "lost" film, which means that no surviving copies are thought to exist.
The Red Lily
Marise La Noue
Jean and Marise, young lovers forced from their homes, flee to Paris. Irrevocably separated there, their lives deviate into the slums and hard labor of low-class French society. All the while, the two desperately search for one another.
The Sea Hawk
Lady Rosamund Godolphin
The adventures of Oliver Tressilian, who goes from English gentry to galley slave to captain of a Moorish fighting ship.
The Courtship of Miles Standish
Priscilla Mullens
A dramatization of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem 'The Courtship of Miles Standish,' this is the story of the Pilgrims who fled religious persecution in England and came to America aboard the Mayflower.
Strangers of the Night
Poppy Faire
A rousing fusion of satire, mystery and action. Aristrocrat Ambrose Applejohn is aching for excitement. He gets more than he bargained for when the two Russian thieves Anna Valeska and her partner Borolsky, arrive at the mansion one dark night.
Scandalous Tongues
Silent feature directed by Victor Schertzinger
Robin Hood
Lady Marian
Amid big-budget medieval pageantry, King Richard goes on the Crusades leaving his brother Prince John as regent, who promptly emerges as a cruel, grasping, treacherous tyrant. Apprised of England's peril by message from his lady-love Marian, the dashing Earl of Huntingdon endangers his life and honor by returning to oppose John, but finds himself and his friends outlawed, with Marian apparently dead. Enter Robin Hood, acrobatic champion of the oppressed, laboring to set things right through swashbuckling feats and cliffhanging perils!
The Bootlegger's Daughter
Nell Bradley
Silent directed by Victor Schertzinger
A Trip Through the World's Greatest Motion Picture Studios
Herself
A Trip Through the World's Greatest Motion Picture Studios (1920) presents a fascinating glimpse into the Thomas H. Ince studios at Culver City.
The False Road
Betty Palmer
Roger Moran, a member of a gang of thieves headed by Mike Wilson, is released from prison after having served a two-year sentence. He has learned his lesson and vows to leave his life of crime, but his girlfriend Betty Palmer--also a member of the gang--won't leave "the false road".
The Woman in the Suitcase
Mary Moreland
Mary Moreland discovers the photograph of a woman not her mother in her father's suitcase and sets out to find her in hopes of returning her father to his rightful place in the family.
The Haunted Bedroom
Betsy Thorne
Betsy Thorne (Bennett) travels to investigate a missing man where she overhears a conversation between the sheriff and an imported detective that reporters are barred from the house and grounds where the mystery has taken place. She comes across a maid sent to the house from Richmond, and so frightens her that she gains a chance to act in her place. During the first night at the house she is terrified when she sees a ghostly figure come from the grand organ. The house is roused by her screams as she flees the room, and she is forbidden from going back there by the sister of the missing man. During the following night she is locked in her room during a thunderstorm, and while escaping through a window sees the ghostly figure again in the family graveyard. She makes an investigation which starts from a particular chord played at the grand organ. They find that certain keys cause a secret door in the organ to open, revealing a secret passage to a family tomb.
Partners Three
Agnes Cuyler
Agnes Cuyler, a cabaret singer in New York who loathes her work, is fired for slapping Grant Haywood, a customer from the West who tries to kiss her. Haywood begs forgiveness and after glorifying the clean Western life, proposes. To escape her circumstances, Agnes accepts, but soon learns that Haywood is a brutal drunkard.
The Marriage Ring
Anne Mertons
Anne Mertons (Enid Bennett) is the unhappy wife of Hugo Mertons (Robert McKim), an unscrupulous brute. When the two struggle over a gun, Hugo is shot. Anne, thinking he is dead, flees to Hawaii, where she falls in love with Rodney Heathe (Jack Holt), who owns a sugar plantation.
The Vamp
Nancy Lyons
Nancy, a naive young girl who works backstage at a musical-comedy theatre, learns from the chorus girls the notion of winning a man by the seductive method of "vamping" him. She tries the method on the shy minister she loves, and it works.
A Desert Wooing
Avice Bereton
When wealthy cattleman Bart Masters (Jack Holt) comes East, he falls in love with social butterfly Avice Bereton (Enid Bennett). She marries Bart for his money, all the while promising to continue her romance with society doctor Van Fleet (Donald MacDonald). Bart knows what's going on behind his back, but he insists that Avice return with him to his ranch and at least make an effort to be a dutiful wife.
The Girl, Glory
Glory Wharton
Glory Wharton is the granddaughter of civil war veteran Jed Wharton. Jed entertains everyone with his war stories, but has a serious drinking problem. Glory is determined to help him overcome this. -from IMDB.com
Happiness
Doris Wingate
Doris Wingate is featured in a Sunday magazine supplement as the most snobbish girl in America. In reality, Doris is lovable and eager for friends, and it is her Aunt Priscilla who deliberately cultivates the false impression. Realizing this, her uncle ships Doris off to a co-educational college, but unfortunately, her reputation preceded her and she is snubbed by the other students.
The Little Brother
Jerry Ross
Jerry Ross dresses as a boy and sells newspapers to make money on the street corner. As the result of a chance meeting with Frank Girard, who is interested in the "Big Brother Movement," Jerry is invited to Girard's farm in the country. Later she is sent to a coeducational institution where she assumes the dress and manners of a girl once more.
Princess of the Dark
Fay Herron
James Herron, a consumptive, has built a shack in the hope that the mountain air may prolong his life. With him dwells his daughter, Fay, whom he idolizes. Fay, who has been blind from her birth, has a wonderful imagination, even the town and its sordid inhabitants become invested with romance and take their part in the stories of adventures that her father reads to her.
The Aryan
Undetermined Secondary Role
Steve Denton, rich from years of prospecting, is fleeced by the citizens of Yellow Ridge. In his rage, he kidnaps the woman most responsible and makes her his slave in a desert hideaway.