Cat. #0005022021: JOAN BENNETT

Attractive vintage 8x10-inch black and white portrait in her prime, boldly signed and inscribed in blue fountain pen in the 1980s. In good condition. Born of a long line of actors, dating to the 18th century, Joan Bennett made her Hollywood debut alongside her parents and two sisters in The Valley of Decision (1916), aged only five.  After a long hiatus, she returned to the screen in the early 1930s, headlining in enjoyable programmers like Me and My Gal (1932), Little Women (1933) and Pursuit of Happiness (1934).  While always popular with audiences, it wasn't until she dyed her blonde hair jet black for a role in Trade Winds (1938) that she achieved bona fide icon status, thriving in "dark" bad girl roles throughout the 1940s.  She was especially effective in a series of melodramas directed by Fritz Lang: Man Hunt (1941), The Woman in the Window (1944), Scarlet Street (1945), and The Secret Beyond the Door (1948). In 1950, she again switched professional gears, abandoning femme-fatal