Enid Bennett

Enid Bennett (1893-1969) was an Australian-born silent film actress, mostly active in the American cinema. She peaked in the late 1910s and early 1920s with films such as Robin Hood (1922), starring Douglas Fairbanks, and The Sea Hawk (1924). In the sound era, she played Jackie Coogan's mother in the Oscar-winning film Skippy (1931). She was the wife of director Fred Niblo and after his death of director Sidney Franklin.


Spanish postcard in the Estrellas del Cine series by Ediciones Victoria, Barcelona, no. 1282.


French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, Paris, no. 113. Photo: Hoover.


Spanish postcard by La Novela Semanal Cinematografica, no. 105.

Touring through Australia with Fred Niblo

Enid Eulalie Bennett was born in 1893 in York in Western Australia. She was the daughter of Nellie Mary Louise (née Walker) and Frank Bennett. She had an older brother, Francis Reginald 'Reg' Bennett, and a younger sister, the future actress Marjorie Bennett.

After an unsuccessful attempt to start his own school, Frank took up the role of headmaster at the newly established Guildford Grammar School in 1896. He died in 1898 when he drowned in a river while suffering from depression.

In 1899, Nellie married the new headmaster, Alexander Gillespie. With him, she had a daughter named Catherine and a son named Alexander. Following Gillespie's death in 1903, Nellie supported her five children by working as a school matron.

Enid attended Lionel Logue's acting and elocution classes in Perth, and after receiving encouragement from Katherine Gray, a visiting American actress in 1910, she joined a touring company.

By 1912, Bennett had joined the Fred Niblo-Josephine Cohan touring company, performing comedies around Australia and understudying for Cohan herself, for which she received consistently positive reviews. Her family had moved to Sydney by this time. In 1917, her brother Reg was killed during the Battle of Passchendaele in Belgium while serving with the First Australian Imperial Force.

In the early part of 1915, theatre agent J. C. Williamson decided to make short films of some of their popular plays, to forestall the release of imported American filmed versions. They used Fred Niblo as director, and members of his troupe appeared in Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford (Fred Niblo, 1916) and Officer 666 (Fred Niblo, 1916). Enid Bennett appeared in both. Three reels of Officer 666 survive today in the National Film and Sound Archive. Film historians Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper described it as "a crude production doggedly faithful to the stage." Both films were released in Australia after Bennett left for the United States in June 1915, travelling with Niblo and his wife Josephine Cohan.


British postcard. Photo: Apeda / Paramount.


American postcard, no. 794. Caption: Enid Bennett's Home, Beverly Hills, Cal.


British postcard in the Pictures Portrait Gallery by Pictures Ltd., London, no. 9/190. Sent by mail in Belgium in 1923.

Walking through Robin Hood in a queenly manner

Enid Bennett's first appearance in the U.S. was on Broadway in Henry Arthur Jones' play 'Cock o' the Walk' at George M. Cohan's Theatre in late 1915 and early 1916. It was a vehicle for popular comedian Otis Skinner and Enid played a supporting part.

Film roles of increasing importance followed soon after. One of her early films was The Little Brother (Charles Miller, 1917) for Kay-Bee Pictures. This brought her to the attention of Thomas H. Ince, who signed her up with the Triangle Film Corporation. From 1918 to 1921, she starred in 23 Triangle films, becoming well-established as an actress and attracting great publicity and consistently positive reviews.

Following Josephine Cohan's death in 1916, Bennett married her widower Fred Niblo in 1918. Niblo’s first American directing experience was The Marriage Ring (Fred Niblo, 1918), with Enid in a leading role. He had learned a lot since the days of his Australian film experience.

Niblo went on to direct until the early 1930s and the first years of sound film. Enid Bennett was also busy. In 1922, she starred in three films, one of which became her most famous role, the female lead of Maid Marian in Robin Hood (Allan Dwan, 1922) with Douglas Fairbanks.

Interviewed in the 1960s by Kevin Brownlow, Bennett said, "I had a wonderful time playing Maid Marian. Of course, the part was not too demanding, I just walked through it in a queenly manner. [Fairbanks] was wonderful, inspiring."

In 1922, she and Niblo had their first child, a daughter named Loris. A son, Peter, was born later that year, and another daughter, Judith, was born in 1928. So, between 1923 and 1928 her career slowed and she appeared in leading roles in fewer films.

She starred opposite Ramon Novarro in Niblo's film Red Lily (Fred Niblo, 1924). Another stand-out role was as Lady Rosamund Godolphin in the adventure film The Sea Hawk (Frank Lloyd, 1924) with Milton Sills and Wallace Beery. When the film was released, New York Times critic Mordaunt Hall called it "far and away the best sea story that's yet been done up to that point".


French postcard by Editions Paramount, Paris.


Danish postcard by J. Chr. Olsons Kunstforlag, Eneret, no. 536. Photo: Milton Sills and Enid Bennett in The Sea Hawk (Frank Lloyd, 1924).


German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 849/1, 1925-1926. Photo: Bafag (British-American-Film AG).

Jackie Cooper's decent mother figure

Enid Bennett made the transition to sound, appearing as a decent mother figure in two Jackie Cooper-Robert Coogan films: Skippy (Norman Taurog, 1931), which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, and its sequel Sooky (Norman Taurog, 1931).

She also played a mother in Waterloo Bridge (James Whale, 1931), with Mae Clarke and Douglass Montgomery. Later at the end of the decade, she appeared in Intermezzo (Gregory Ratoff, 1939) with Ingrid Bergman, and in a few minor roles.

Her last film was the Marx Brothers comedy The Big Store (Charles Reisner, 1941), in which she had an uncredited bit part as a clerk. Niblo had retired in 1933, and it appears Bennett did also.

In later life, her sister Marjorie Bennett explained that, somewhat against her will, she had been encouraged by the family to join Bennett in 1915 to keep her company in the U.S. Enid helped to launch the career of her younger sister as a character actress. By the mid-1920s, their mother Nellie and their other siblings were also living in the U.S. In 1934, her brother Alexander married actress Frances Lee. The wedding was attended by some of Hollywood's biggest names, including Gloria Swansonand Greta Garbo.

Niblo and Bennett commissioned architect Wallace Neff to design their house on Angelo Drive, which they named 'Misty Mountain'. It was completed in 1926 and sold by the couple to Jule C. Stein in 1940 after a decline in their fortunes. Fred Niblo died in 1948.

In 1963, Enid married American film director Sidney Franklin. In later life, she resided in Malibu, California, and was a sculptor and created pottery. She also worked until her death for the Christian Science Church. She regularly appeared on radio and TV, sometimes credited as Enid Bennett Niblo, hosting short Christian Science programs on healing, including 'Light of Faith' and 'How Christian Science heals'.

In 1969, Enid Bennett died of a heart attack at her home in Malibu, California, aged 75. Her ashes were interred next to Fred Niblo’s.


French postcard in the Les vedettes de cinéma series by A.N., Paris, no. 39. Photo: Film Paramount.


French postcard in the Les vedettes de cinéma series by A.N., Paris, no. 83. Photo: United Artists.


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition / A.N., Paris, no. 135. Photo: Hoover, L.A.


French postcard by Cinémagazine-Edition / A.N., Paris, no. 296. Photo: Evans Studio, L.A.

Sourced: Heathcote Pursuit (Forgotten Australian actors), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Wikipedia, and IMDb.