Constance Bennett – Service de Luxe 1938

If classic film fans are familiar with Constance Bennett (1904-1965) , it is usually through two films, Topper (1937) and What Price Hollywood? (1932).

The production still above from the 1938 romance comedy film Service de Luxe is one of many that Bennett made and is now forgotten.

What Price Hollywood? is the first version essentially of a story that would be remade and modified four times, most recently with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper under the title A Star Is Born (2018).

Bennett’s appearance in Topper along with Cary Grant is somewhat abbreviated because you hear only their voices for part of the film. Both actors are often invisible (except to co-star Roland Young), playing ghosts.

Constance Bennett with her sisters Joan Bennett (1910- 1990) and Barbara Bennett (1906-1958), all began acting in their teens. Their father, stage and film actor Richard Bennett (1870-1944) was one of the most popular Broadway stars at the turn-of the-century.

Besides her five marriages, Constance Bennett was well known for looking the part of a glamorous movie star on and off screen. Often she was frequently named by the press in the 1920s and 30s as one of the “best dressed women” in Hollywood.

Other Hollywood stars consistently on the fashionable list with Bennett; Lilyan Tashman; Kay Francis; Norma Shearer; Billie Dove; Jean Harlow and Gloria Swanson.

After World War II, Bennett made only six more films, until her death of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1965.