Constance Bennett (1904-1965)
Filed under the name Constance · February 26, 2026
One does enjoy tracing a name like Constance Bennett back through the family trees of old Hollywood, and I confess a particular delight in discovering that she was, by most accounts, one of the best-compensated actresses of the early nineteen-thirties, praised especially for her sharp wit in the classic screwball comedies of the period. There is something enormously satisfying about a woman who commanded that kind of financial success on her own considerable talent, at a time when very few women, in any industry, were permitted anything like it — a fact I note with genuine admiration rather than the faint condescension I'm occasionally guilty of toward self-made success, having never had to earn a single dollar of my own. My late husband adored the screwball comedies of that era, and we watched a great many of them together over the years; I have always thought sharp wit aged rather better on screen than almost any other quality. Bennett's career strikes me as exactly the kind of earned, glittering success I find myself unexpectedly moved by.