Belle Bennett

Ara Belle Bennett, born April 22, 1891, in Milaca, Minnesota, was a stage and screen actress whose career spanned circus performance, theater, and film. The daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Bennett, she grew up in a family rooted in entertainment: her father, known as "Billie," operated a tent-and-wagon show that traveled throughout the Midwestern United States. Bennett began performing as a child through that circus circuit before transitioning to theater and eventually motion pictures.

By 1913, Bennett had established herself as a film actress, taking on roles in one-reel shorts produced by small east coast film companies. Among her early screen appearances was A Ticket to Red Horse Gulch, released by Mutual in 1914. She went on to star in several full-length productions for the Triangle Film Corporation, including The Lonely Woman in 1918, and appeared in the United States Motion Picture Corporation's Flesh and Spirit in 1922. Her Broadway career included a 1921 appearance in the play The Wandering Jew.

Bennett's most significant screen role came when Samuel Goldwyn selected her from a field of 73 actresses to play the lead in Stella Dallas in 1925. During the production of that film, her sixteen-year-old son, William Howard Macy, died. Macy had publicly passed as Bennett's brother for a period of time, as she had represented her age as 24 rather than her actual age of 34, fearing professional consequences. Following her son's death, she grew close to co-stars Lois Moran and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., both of whom were also sixteen at the time. The maternal role in Stella Dallas effectively defined the remainder of her film career, as she was subsequently typecast in similar parts.

Her later filmography included Mother Machree, The Battle of the Sexes, and The Iron Mask, all released in 1928, followed by Courage and Recaptured Love in 1930, and The Big Shot in 1931. Bennett was married three times. Her first husband was Howard Ralph Macy of La Crosse, Wisconsin, with whom she had her son William Howard Macy. Her second husband was Jack Oaker, a sailor stationed at the submarine base in San Pedro, California, whom she married while working with the Triangle Film Corporation in 1918. On November 27, 1924, she married film director Fred Windemere, and the two remained together until her death. After the loss of her son, Bennett adopted at least one child, Theodore Macy, who was twenty-two years old at the time of her death.

Bennett died on November 4, 1932, in Hollywood, California, from general carcinomatosis. In 1960, she was posthumously inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame during the organization's inaugural ceremonies, receiving a motion pictures star located at 1511 Vine Street.