Scrantonian Tribune from Scranton, Pennsylvania • 42

HOW FATE WROTE A NEW CLIMAX INTO THE SCENARIO OF HEARTBREAK STARRING HOLLYWOODS FAMED BENNETT SISTERS AND THEIR MOTHER sr3 Jr i By SUKSDERITE REOOERS MARSHALL AN a woman die of a broken heart? And how many more marital time bombs will Fate explode in the path of the beautiful Bennetts? Moorhead. Her second husband was Phil Plant, famous as one of the first million-dollar playboys, who settled a million on her at the time of their divorce. After that episode, she became the wife of Gloria Swansons former been handling the dramatic department of the agency and had known nothing about the conduct of its other business. When she did realize what must have happened, woman-like she kept on loving her husband. If he took the money, he took It for me," she told her friends with stubborn loyally.

The, probation officer reported that the three Bennett girls had At one time agreed to contribute $150 a month to their mother, if she would quit the. agency business and retire to live the year round at the Connecticut home. Halperns report added: It appears that Pinkers stepchildren always maintained toward the defendant somewhat of a low temperature relationship, seemingly they did not approve of their mother marrying anyone. Adrienne Morrison refused her daughters offer. Unlike Paulette Goddards father, she refused to ask for more.

Paulettes papa, Joseph R. Levee, recently begged the court to order his daughter Charlie Chaplins wife to pay him $150 a week, instead of the $75 she allows him at the present time. Once more, as after her divorce and her retirement from the stage, Adrienne had her life to remake. Only now she was a woman of sixty-one, even if she didnt look it, wearing her clothes with an actresses flair and always with a touch of daring color like a flag flying. She found a modest position in a literary agency.

She took a modest apartment -and lived there alone. Except for her memories and, on the walls, the announce his engagement to Morgan Converse, now Lady Furness. (Long before the banns, this half of the Magical Morgan twins ran out on her Adonis idea, to marry her Viscount). Then Adrienne met Eric S. Pinker, a handsome Britisher twenty years her Junior with a distinguished World War record.

Eric and I fell in love Just like that and decided to get married she said afterward. But he wanted me to quit acting and that wasnt so easy. She did it, though, for the man who in 1927 became her second husband and soon became her boss. She went to work for him in the literary agency he started. And then Adrienne found a new and radiantly happy role to occupy her time.

Up in the Connecticut hills, six miles away from Lyme, Eric Pinker bought his wife a hundred acres of unspoiled country and built on it their dream house, where she could play lady of the. manor to her hearts content. They called the place by the odd and in the light of the future the heart-breakingly pathetic name of Fun Tomorrow." Butterflies, blossoms, country air, a man she loved it all seemed such an idyll to Adrienne after the hot glare of Broadway! To- it came dimly the echoes of Hollywood, where Fames Klieg lights beat upon the three beautiful daughters who had won movie stardom. They were all so lovely, and so famous but their mother, cultivating her quiet garden, felt sure they could be no happier than husband, Marquis Henri de la Falaise-Coudray Hank for short The ink on her Reno divorce from him is hardly dry. i Joan married and parted from John Martin Fox, Seattle millionaire.

Gene Markey, who afterward married Hedy Lamarr, was Joans second husband. Now shes the wife of Walter Wanger, film producer, with whom she eloped to Phoenix, a year ago. But, despite the marital vicissitudes of the Three Graces of Hollywood despite whatever may happen to them in the future the life of none can show a more dramatic transition from shining height to sad depths than their mother, AdrienAe Morrison, experienced. She Is one more figure from the brilliant world of stage and screen whose glitter fell like that of a Christmas tree. When she met her tragically sudden end alone in a New York apartment, apparently of a heart attack, friends asked one another: "Can even so gallant a womans heart break at last? Failure, frustration; loneliness Fate made Adrienne Morrison take-them all, in the end.

Yet in the beginning, she was given much and she gave the world more. Not only was she herself one of cfT thrill Qtrj -j a lovely children then a crack-up. 4 T' 1 A Adrienne Morrison, shown in a late picture, handed down a heritage of beauty and heartbreak. 1 Joan, -too, has tried three times the constantly increasing difficulties. Offstage, Richard Bennett played a role of reckless irresponsibility financial and otherwise.

He made a million' and- became a bankrupt. Money slipped, and slithered through his fingers. Adrienne often laughingly re-' called how, when the girls were old enough to go places, all three and their mother pieced out with one an; others clothes. Whoever' got up first was best dressed, she chuckled. Connie lost several furs of.

mine at football games. A trial separation, in 1923 apartments for the Richard Bennetts six blocks apartH-was the first gallant attempt to avoid the divorce courts. But in 1925, after being a loyal wife for twenty-two years, Adrienne Morrison asked for her freedom. I still love Adrienne I always will," her husband said with unwonted gravity. To be sure, a year or so later Richard was sufficiently himself again to Barbara! above, seemed to be the one Bennett who held the; secret of marital bliss but trouble loomed.

(Si'S to Connie's romantic problems. generations of players. Adrienne to use the stage name she always used-made her debut at the age of fourteen, in the coveted role of Juliet. Shakes, peare wrote it for that age', although most actresses are a ripe forty before getting into a Romeos embrace. Adrienne must have been an exquisite Juliet, with her great violet, eyes, her hair curling softly about classic' features, the lovely hands, figure and carriage which she kept to the day of her death at sixty-two.

She had what sculptors call beautiful bones, and they outlast the. ravages of time and sorrow. In the glory of radiant young -womanhood she became the bride of Richard Bennett, handsome matinee idol. Even after he turned gray, they called him "the silver-haired Adonis of the theatre. His wife was his leading lady.

As the little daughters came and grew up, Adrienne Morrisons supreme role was that of mother, who kept together a hom6 for her children against If you dont see the connection between these two questions, Broadway and Hollywood do. They asked the first when the sorely-tried heart of Adrienne Morrison stopped beating a few weeks ago- -Adrienne, glamorous mother of Constance, Joan and Barbara Bennett. Now its brown-eyed Barbaras heart-trouble thats latest in the headlines, with her announcement that after twelve years and five lovely children, she and Morton Downey, radio singer, would separate unless some agreement could be worked out Broadway and Hollywood are thinking that at least Barbaras mother was spared a final pang. She didnt live to see the crash of the one apparently successful marriage and secure home among her three lovely and famed daughters. Adrienne Morrison could believe to the end that Barbara and Morton were among Hollywoods happiest couples that this Bennett union was bombproof.

The West Coast certainly believed that. Instead, Fate merely dropped a delayed-action time bomb, detonating the Downeys bliss after a dozen years. Its enough to make anybody wonder 'V -n I dfev No hint of unhappiness shad owed Barbara and crooner Morton Downey when this photo was snapped early in their marriage. whether anybodys married happiness is safe especially any Bennetts. Who wouldnt have picked Barbara Bennetts lovely household as a perfect, shelter against smash-up? When, as Maurices dainty little dancing partner, she left Broadway to follow the call of her crooner, the two promptly went into the business of parenthood in a big way.

Shunning the studios, Barbara made no secret of her preference for the nursery. She and Morton are the parents of five fine youngsters Michael, 10; Sean, Barbara, Tony, 4V4; Kevin, 2. Now all five are the children of a 'broken home. Apparently the beautiful Bennetts can't stay hitched. Just to keep the matrimonial record of the three sisters straight, in case youve forgotten Constance and Joan have had three husbands apiece, since Connie eloped at sixteen to marry Chester Hirst ILLUSTRATION BY HOLCOMB.

to win marital happiness. she i her second Maybe Barbara was just as happy still married tp a man she loved. (Barbaras mother couldnt look into the future.) And then came the frost, the killing frost A year and a half ago Eric Pinker was late for the lunch Adrienne -herself cooked in the Ttile New York apartment where they spent Winters. When he arrived at last, two men ac- companied him. You may as well know that I am in their custody, he told her, tight-lipped and grim.

E. Phillips Oppenheim had accused Pinker of misappropriating more than $20,000 due the famous author. Pinker' pleaded guilty, but completely exonerated his wife. Irving Halpem, chief probation officer, said in his report to Judge Morris Koenig of General Sessions that Pinker was broke. There was no money for restitution.

There was no money for Adrienne. She couldnt believe it, at first, for she loved him; also for yetrs she had Today, Joan and her producer-husband, Walter Wanger aro challenging the jinx that hat dogged the Bennett romances for years, portraits of the lovely daughters in all their famous roles, 6f Barbara, the happy wife and mother. No cloud, then, on Barbaras sky! Except, too for the hope of building up a new life with Eric Pinker. His friends and' even some of his com-. petitors had "remained sympathetic.

Today a job as literary consultant is said to- be waiting for him in a publisher's office although his wife Isnt waiting any longer. So what? So had a courageous heart endured all it could the loss of love, fame, beauty, home, happiness, 'even When the spirit still fights on as Adrienne Morrisons shining spirit fought can the flesh become too weak? Every hope hope deferred maketh the heart sick, the Good Book tells us. Do hearts break? Who can answer? If Adrienne Morrison knew the answer she took it with her. i ij i Three husbands attested Broadways uncrowned queefis, in the early years of the century when Rialto charmers such as Lillian Russell, Maxine Elliot, Anna Held captivated a continent. Unlike the others, Adrienne was a carrier of beauty, handing it down to three daughters.

A lovely portrait, with three exquisite baby giils grouped about their exquisite mother, stands as a permanent reminder that the whole modern generation of movie fans is in Adrienne Morrisons debt. Richard Bennett, father of Constance, Joan and Barbara, told a New York friend recently: The girls are beautiful but not one of them can touch their mother!" Hes had two wives since Adrienne divorced him, Tout hes still that way about her. This is getting too far ahead of the story, which is Adriennes brave, pathetic legend of triumph and catastrophe. Lets begin at the beginning. -She was born Mabel Morrison, and horn to the theatrical purple of seven Years of happiness for Barbara, five I i -r -v vv.

nett, father Richard Bennett, Joan and big sister Constance. All were to find romance elusive; The amazing Bennetts in a less eventful era-left to right, Barbara, Mrs. Adrienne Morrison Ben- Cowrie, ml Stef.