Leila Bennett

Leila Bennett (November 17, 1892 – January 5, 1965) was an American actress born in Newark, New Jersey, who built a career spanning Broadway and Hollywood film. Her father worked as a newspaper editor, her mother served as a part-time stenographer and housewife, and the family was affiliated with Christian Science. Before establishing herself on the New York stage, Bennett gained experience through the Harry Blaney Stock Company in Brooklyn.

Bennett's Broadway career ran from 1919 to 1931. She made her New York stage debut that first year in the comedy Thunder, portraying a character named Mandy Coulter in a blackface performance that drew praise from the New-York Tribune. Subsequent stage work included The First Year, which ran from 1920 to 1922, followed by The Wheel in 1921 and Chicken Feed from 1923 to 1924. She continued with A Holy Terror in 1925 and It's a Wise Child from 1929 to 1930. Her final stage appearance came in Company's Coming in 1931.

After leaving the theatre, Bennett transitioned to film, where she became known for supporting roles as slapstick sidekicks, mousy maids, and scatterbrained characters. Her screen debut came in an uncredited part in Gentleman's Fate, playing a lunch counter attendant. In 1932 she appeared in six films, including Emma alongside Marie Dressler and Myrna Loy, Taxi! opposite James Cagney and Loretta Young, The Purchase Price with Barbara Stanwyck, Tiger Shark, and Doctor X with Lee Tracy and Fay Wray. The following year she played Anna May Wong's ladies maid in A Study in Scarlet. Bennett worked as a freelancer across multiple studios, including Warner Bros., RKO Radio Pictures, Columbia Pictures, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In Mark of the Vampire (1935) she played a terrified maid, and in 1936 she appeared as Edna Hopper in Fury, opposite Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sidney, a performance the Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune described as providing splendid support.

In 1934 Bennett married Francis M. Keough, who managed the Beach Club Restaurant and Casino in Palm Beach. Keough died in 1945, and during their marriage Bennett divided her time between New York City and Florida. She died on January 5, 1965, in New York City at the age of 72. Her funeral was held at The Universal Chapel on 52nd Street and Lexington Avenue, and she was interred at Fairmount Cemetery in Newark, New Jersey, in the family plot at Section F, Lot 157, Grave 3 rear, alongside her parents.