Belle Bennett
Also Known As: Ara Belle Bennett
Biography: From Wikipedia Belle Bennett (April 22, 1891 – November 4, 1932) was a stage and screen actress who started her professional career in vaudeville. She was born in Milaca, Minnesota. Bennett was working as a film actress by 1913, and was cast in numerous one-reel shorts by small East Coast film companies. She appeared in minor motion pictures like the western film A Ticket to Red Horse Gulch (Mutual, 1914). She starred in several full-length films by the Triangle Film Corporation, including The Lonely Woman (1918). She also appeared in the Moving Picture Corporation's film Flesh and Spirit (1922). She made the move to Hollywood before Samuel Goldwyn selected her from among seventy-three actresses for the leading role in Stella Dallas (1925). While filming the movie, her son, sixteen-year-old William Howard Macy, died. Macy had posed as Bennett's brother for some time because of her fear that her employers might find out her true age. She was actually thirty-four rather than twenty-four, which she had claimed to be. After playing the mother role in Stella Dallas, Bennett was typecast for the remainder of her film career. She later appeared in Mother Machree (1928), The Battle of the Sexes (1928), The Iron Mask (1929), Courage (1930), Recaptured Love (1930), and The Big Shot (1931). Bennett was married three times. Jack Oaker, a sailor at the San Pedro, California submarine base, was married to her when she worked with the Triangle Film Corporation, in 1918. Her second husband was William Macy of La Crosse, Wisconsin. She later married film director Fred Windermere. In September 1932 she experienced a relapse of cancer, which she had been suffering from for two and a half years. She died that November at the age of 41. Late in her life Bennett came to believe in the power of prayer. A practitioner of Christian Science influenced her. She is interred in the Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood. Bennett has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Coon Rapids, Iowa, USA
Adult: No
Birthday: April 22, 1891
Age: 134 years old
Gender: Female
Deathday: November 04, 1932
Popularity:
Known For:
East Lynne
Overview: This most famous of Victorian melodramas was more than half a century old, and had already been filmed several times when it came to the screen once again in 1925. Director Emmett J. Flynn had an all-star cast and kept close to the original story.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1925-11-23
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Your Best Friend
Overview: A Jewish mother in New York finds herself at odds with her son's new wife, a pretty Gentile girl.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1922-03-26
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Playing with Souls
Overview: Amy and Matthew Dale separate and they place their young son, Matthew Jr., in a London boarding school. The boy grows up without knowing his parents, and is taunted by his schoolmates, who doubt the legitimacy of his childhood. By the time he is 20, Matt wants to find out about his parentage, so he travels to Paris, leaving behind his sweetheart, Margo.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1925-04-30
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A Capable Lady Cook
Overview: Hubby can't stand his wife's cooking and he goes to the employment agency and gets Sweedy as a new cook. They arrive home and dinner is about to be served. Sweedy never reaches the table, however, for her foot slips and the expected dinner flies away. Sweedy then starts to clean house, but she gets in wrong by raising clouds of dust. Sweedy now starts to do more cooking, but gets a note from the iceman saying he will meet her on the comer and go for a lark. Sweedy takes the wife's new gown and goes to keep the appointment. Hubby discovers the note, thinks his wife is false, follows and brings Sweedy home, where, in the parlor, he protests against such treatment and declares his love in hot terms, which is overheard by the wife. She steps in and the astonished husband discovers his terrible mistake.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1916-11-17
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Sweedie, the Janitor
Overview: A janitor finds a piece of jewelry dropped by a young woman, which he in turn gives to his wife. Feeling sorry for the young woman, the janitor tries to straighten things out, with many funny complications.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1916-11-10
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The Way of All Flesh
Overview: The story takes place in Milwaukee during the early 1900s with a bank clerk named August Schiller who is happy with both his job and his family. He is tasked with transporting $1,000 in securities to Chicago. On the train he meets a blond seductress who convinces him to buy her a bottle of champagne, and takes him to a saloon. The next morning he awakes alone in a dilapidated bedroom and without the securities.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1927-10-01
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The Iron Mask
Overview: King Louis XIII of France is thrilled to have born to him a son - an heir to the throne. But when the queen delivers a twin, Cardinal Richelieu sees the second son as a potential for revolution, and has him sent off to Spain to be raised in secret to ensure a peaceful future for France. Alas, keeping the secret means sending Constance, lover of D'Artagnan, off to a convent. D'Artagnan hears of this and rallies the Musketeers in a bid to rescue her. Unfortunately, Richelieu out-smarts the Musketeers and banishes them forever.
Genres: Adventure History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1929-02-21
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Their Own Desire
Overview: Lally is a rich girl whose father writes books and plays polo. After 23 years of marriage her father decides to divorce Lally's mother and remarry to soon-to-be-divorced Beth Cheever. This sours Lally on all men. While on vacation with her mother she meets Jack, who succeeds in stealing her heart. Then Lally discovers that Jack is the son of Beth Cheever, the woman who is to marry her father.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1929-12-27
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Stella Dallas
Overview: An eccentric lower class woman struggles to gain respect in high society after marrying a wealthy man, and the problem gets worse when their daughter starts growing up.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1925-11-16
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The Battle of the Sexes
Overview: Gum-chewing frizzy-haired golddigger Marie Skinner cooks up a scheme with her lover Babe Winsor, a jazz hound, to fleece a portly middle-aged real estate tycoon, William Judson. Marie moves into Judson's apartment building and contrives to meet and seduce him, plying him with compliments, music, swoons, décolletage, and batted eyes. When his loyal wife (and their two children) see him out catting with Marie at a night club, mom's devastated and confronts him. He moves out. Babe wants Marie to sell Judson worthless bonds. Will mom commit suicide? Will sis shoot the floozy? Will pops figure out he's being a fool?
Genres: Drama Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1928-10-12
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Mother Machree
Overview: Ellen McHugh, a poor Irish immigrant to America, finds work in a carnival and is thus able to send her son Brian to a fine school. But when her position is found out, the school expels Brian. Mrs. McHugh feels compelled to allow the school principal and his wife to adopt Brian. The widow McHugh becomes a housekeeper and raises her employer's daughter Edith, who grows up to fall in love with Brian McHugh.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1927-12-19
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Recaptured Love
Overview: In this drama, a 50-year-old married man (played by John Halliday) goes with his wife (Belle Bennett) and son (Junior Durkin) to a nightclub in a fancy hotel in Detroit. He meets a gold-digger (Dorothy Burgess) there, singing the theme song of the picture, and eventually ends up going out with her on a subsequent occasion and falls in love with her. His wife finally finds out and this leads to her leaving him and getting a divorce in Paris. He is married to the gold-digger but finds life with her and her "jazz friends" to be too much for him. He begins to long for his old wife when he finds her in a nightclub with another man and becomes jealous.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1930-07-07
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The Big Shot
Overview: A young man runs into trouble when he buys an auto court, only to find out that its located next to a swamp that drives away all potential customers.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1931-12-31
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Mignon
Overview:
Genres: No genres available
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1915-01-18
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Courage
Overview: Belle Bennett plays as the widowed mother of seven children living in Sioux City, Iowa. She moves with them to Cambridge, Massachusetts in order to educate her children with culture and give them every advantage. Bennett, who is unversed in financial matters, soon faces poverty for herself and her children. She takes out a loan from an unscrupulous lender (played by Richard Tucker), who is so impressed by the charm and valiant spirit of Bennett than he neglects to ask her for collateral. Bennett, however, is only able to partially pay her creditors. Marion Nixon, Bennett's eldest daughter, is shocked by her mother's actions and attempts to sacrifice herself to Tucker in order to clear her mother's obligations, even though she is engaged to marry a well to do Harvard undergraduate, played by Rex Bell. This film is believed lost.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1930-05-22
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The Reckoning Day
Overview: During World War I, Jane Whiting, a bright young lawyer who is engaged to Senator Wheeler, is assigned by the district attorney to expose a gang of spies who are collecting money for the German government through the operation of a fraudulent charity organization. Wheeler's son Frank has fallen in love with Lola Schram, whose pro-German mother is forcing the girl to work for Frederick Kube, the head of the spy ring, but when Kube learns of the romance, he orders Mrs. Schram to break it off. When Lola finally confesses her activities to Frank, Kube kills her and then frames Frank for the murder. Meanwhile, Jane, through the help of Jimmy and Tilly Ware, has discovered Kube's headquarters and modus operandi
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1918-10-20
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The Unexpected
Overview: Dorothy Madison, a secret service operative, is sent into the West Virginia mountains to locate a still, after male operatives failed. She carries a sketching outfit and a carrier pigeon into the moonshine country, and hides the pigeon in the woods near a mountain cabin, where she hopes to make headquarters. She walks along the road until she sees Dave Parks coming, falls, feigns a sprained ankle, and is taken home by Dave, who is a young, good-looking moonshiner. Dave's mother is a sour-faced, pipe-smoking, suspicious old mountain woman, and only tolerates Dorothy. Nell Oatsey, typical mountain girl of bold beauty, hears of Dorothy's plight and goes to see her. She carries her rifle.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1914-02-28
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In Hollywood with Potash and Perlmutter
Overview: A sequel of sorts, the Jewish ethnic comedy characters of Potash and Perlmutter return from their 1923 debut film, also produced by Goldwyn, but with a different actor for Potash.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1924-09-28
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The Fourth Commandment
Overview: Following a reversal in the Graham family fortune, a childhood love affair between Gordon Graham and Marjorie Miller is frustrated by the socially ambitious Mrs. Miller.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1927-03-20
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The Power of Silence
Overview: Would An Innocent Woman Keep Silent? Would the fear of a murderer's death shake her from the Sphinx-like silence that shielded- who?
Genres: Mystery
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1928-10-20
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Ashes of Hope
Overview: Set in the Great White North, the film stars Bennett as the object of affections for several rugged northerners, including a couple of disreputable gamblers.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-10-06
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His Supreme Moment
Overview: John Douglas, a down-on-his-luck engineer, takes his sweetheart, Sara Deeping, to a play starring Carla King, and he falls in love with the actress.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1925-04-12
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Hello, 'Frisco
Overview: A comedy short directed by character Slim Summerville.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1924-09-28
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Fires of Rebellion
Overview: Madge Garvey (Dorothy Phillips) works in a shoe factory. Her father Joe (Richard de la Reno) is a drunk who beats his wife (Alice May Youss), and her sister Helen (Belle Bennett) has repeated the pattern by marrying Dan Mallory (Edward Brady). The new foreman, John Blake (William Stowell), fires Mallory. Mallory attacks him, but because of his alcohol abuse, his heart gives out and he dies. Blake asks Joe for Madge's hand, and he accepts for her. Madge longs for something better, when Cora, a former stenographer from the company (Golda Madden), writes her from the big city.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-07-02
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The Charmer
Overview: Genuinely sweet natured, Ambrosia Lee loves to help everyone, soothing their sorrows with her cheerful spirit. Her charms are put to the test, when she tries to save her own Aunt Charlotte's marriage. Happily, all ends well, when her Aunt and Uncle are happily reunited.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-08-27
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Mother
Overview: When architect Lee Ellis is discharged from his position in a large firm and has difficulty in finding a new job his devoted wife Mary invests in a business for him with a small legacy she had received. Soon they become prosperous allowing son Jerry to get his longed-for car, and daughter Betty to attend private school. Jerry goes a little jazz mad and rebels against his mother's influence. He decides to elope with gold-digging flapper Edna Larkin. Mary, learning of the plan, chases and saves Jerry when his train is wrecked though he sustains a broken leg. Seeing he has been foolish he straightens out and the family is reunited.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1927-05-01
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The Reckless Lady
Overview: Set amidst French resorts and featuring gambling casinos and an automobile race, a mother and wife develops a mania for gambling, much to the dismay of her husband and daughter. A lost film.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1926-01-24
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The Lily
Overview:
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1926-10-03
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The Devil's Skipper
Overview: The Devil's Skipper was based on Demetrios Contos, a seafaring yarn by Jack London. Effectively cast against type, Belle Bennett plays a wronged woman who becomes the most brutal and feared slave-ship captain on the Seven Seas.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1928-02-01
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Bond of Fear
Overview: When stern Judge McClure gets into an argument with his younger brother John, a physical fight ensues in which the judge apparently kills John. In fear of the consequences, he runs off to the West and hires guide Cal Nelson to take him far into the desert. Along the way they meet Mary Jackson, and the judge, overcome by heat prostration, babbles out his secret.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-09-23
Popularity:
The Sporting Age
Overview: Blinded in a train accident James Driscoll (Holmes Herbert), whose wife, Miriam Driscoll (Belle Bennett), has been having an affair with his young male secretary Phillip Kingston )Carroll Nye), regains his eyesight. He keeps this from his wife, who continues her affair. Finally, he invites his young niece Nancy Driscoll (Josephine Borio) in the hopes she will fall for Philip and vice-versa. His ploy works, James reveals he can see again, and husband and wife are reconciled.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1928-03-02
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Flesh and Spirit
Overview: Belle Bennett stars in this pioneering paranormal silent film.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1922-06-01
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Molly and Me
Overview:
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1929-03-01
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My Lady's Past
Overview: Mamie Reynolds has been engaged to Sam Young for ten years. But when Sam's novel is published after many years of waiting, Sam falls for a gold digger.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1929-04-01
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Wild Geese
Overview: Silent romantic melodrama about a wife and mother who is desperate to keep a secret from the past IN the past, despite her husband's intentions to reveal it.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1927-11-15
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The Deserter
Overview: Parker, an Army lieutenant at a Western outpost, falls in love with Barbara Taylor, daughter of his commanding officer. But when Barbara rejects him, Parker fights with another soldier and deserts. An Indian attack gives him a chance to redeem himself.
Genres: Adventure Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1916-07-09
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The Devil Dodger
Overview: A gambler runs a frontier town with an iron fist.
Genres: Drama Western Action
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1917-09-23
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The Atom
Overview: Jennie is a slavey in a theatrical boarding house. To her the actors are all wonderful, but Montague Booth is the chief. In an accident Booth is disfigured for life and is saved from suicide by Jennie. They join a medicine show in which Booth is lecturer, but Jennie cannot stand the road. Booth leaves the show and takes up a homestead claim. The manager of the show sends one of Booth's old loves to get him back, for his services are valuable, but Belle fails after very nearly wrecking everyone's happiness.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1918-09-15
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The Mayor of Filbert
Overview:
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1919-05-25
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A Lucky Leap
Overview: Fatty leaves his country home to go to the city. Bess, who lives in the city with her mother and her detective father, takes a novel and goes to the park to read, and strikes up a flirtation with Fatty. The father goes to his office, while the mother purchases a watch as a birthday present for him, but she is seen by a crook, who follows her. When she stops in the park to rest he gets the watch. On his way out of the park the crook passes Fatty and sells him the stolen watch. The crook then tries to flirt with Bess, but is thrown out by Fatty, who has fallen in love at first sight and is invited to Bess's home, after he has made her a present of the watch. When Bess and Fatty enter the house the mother is out in the hall telephoning her husband about the loss, and he starts home immediately. Bess leaves Fatty while she shows her mother the watch he gave her. The mother recognizes the watch and starts for Fatty, being joined later by her husband.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1916-07-13
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