Bennett married three times and had five children. On January 28, 1929, she married tenorMorton Downey. The couple had four biological children, including son Morton Downey Jr., and adopted a fifth child, Michael.[2] They divorced in June 1941. Bennett later married actor Addison Randall, a popular romantic star and singing cowboy at the time. On July 16, 1945, Randall died after suffering a myocardial infarction and falling from a horse during the filming of The Royal Mounted Rides Again. Bennett married Laurent Suprenant in 1954. The couple moved to Montreal in 1957 and remained together until her death the following year.[3]
Bennett later worked as a literary representative for producer Walter Wanger, who was married to her sister Joan. In that position, Bennett scouted best-sellers and the like as potential movie properties, especially for her sister Joan.[4]
Death
On August 8, 1958, five days before her 52nd birthday, Bennett died after what the media described as an unidentified "long illness" in Montreal.[2][3] Over the course of her life, Bennett attempted suicide four times. As the circumstances surrounding herself were vague and Bennett's sister Joan refused to discuss the details of her death, rumors arose that Bennett had finally succeeded in ending her life.[5] In her 1982 memoirs Lulu in Hollywood, longtime friend and actress Louise Brooks wrote of Bennett, "Barbara made a career of her emotions. Periods of work or marriage were terminated by her frightening, abandoned laughter of despair and failure. Only her death, in 1958, achieved in her fifth suicide attempt, could be termed a success."[6]
^Brooks, Louise (1989) [Originally published 1983]. "Kansas to New York". Lulu in Hollywood (1989 Limelight ed.). New York: Limelight Editions. p. 13. ISBN0-87910-125-3. OCLC639598800.
