Biography
A handsome, extravagant actor of the old school, Richard Bennett toured on stage for decades before becoming a character actor in films. The son of an itinerant preacher and sheriff, he ran away from home in his teens and by 1891 had hit the Chicago stage in "The Limited Mail." Witty and outspoken, with a penchant for bellowing his lines, Bennett became a star in 1905 with "The Lion and the Mouse," and went on to score great hits with "The Hypocrites" (1906), and the controversial "social disease" drama "Damaged Goods" (1912). He was reportedly so impresses with a new play by a relatively unknown writer named Eugene O'Neill that he championed the production and took on the leading role. "Beyond the Horizon" (1920), a love triangle that featured Bennett as a farm-bound dreamer with yearnings for the sea who marries his brother's intended with tragic results. The play, which was the first to awarded the Pulitzer Prize in drama, received excellent notices as did the cast. Alexander Woolcott of he New York Times (February 8, 1920) wrote "Richard Bennett gives an eloquent and finely imagined performance as the dreamer." The actor later also scored triumphs on Broadway in "He Who Gets Slapped" (1922), "They Knew What They Wanted" (1924), another Pulitzer-winning triangular drama in which he played the vineyard owner who marries a younger woman, and Maxwell Anderson's award-winning social protest drama "Winterset" (1935).
