Belle Bennett

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 onereel 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 fulllength films by the Triangle Film Corporation including The Lonely Woman 1918 She also appeared in the Moving Picture Corporations film Flesh and Spirit 1922 She made the move to Hollywood before Samuel Goldwyn selected her from among seventythree actresses for the leading role in Stella Dallas 1925 While filming the movie her son sixteenyearold William Howard Macy died Macy had posed as Bennetts brother for some time because of her fear that her employers might find out her true age She was actually thirtyfour rather than twentyfour 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