There were three Bennett sisters--Constance, Barbara, and Joan. Their parents Richard Bennett and Adrienne Morrison were stage actors, with Richard dabbling in films from time to time. He is probably best remembered as Major Amberson in "The Magnificent Ambersons." He was also an alcoholic and the turmoil it cause the family influenced Constance to abstain from alcohol.
Connie, however, was vain, temperamental, anorexic (at a time when nobody knew what to call it), attention-seeking, and a lowdown husband-stealer. If she spotted a man she liked, she turned on the charms and seduced him, right in front of his wife. She was also a staunch Republican, loved money, and could be quite stingy with it. When her career had waned, she tried to maintain a lavish lifestyle by dipping into her son's trust fund. When that fund had depleted, her son threatened to sue unless she signed over her home to him. This, of course, caused a rift between them and they didn't speak to each other for years.
Joan was the bookish one and the caregiver. When dad was in one of his drunken periods, Joan would tend to him until recovery. Unlike Connie, Joan and husband Wanger were Democrats and supported a number of liberal causes, earning the wrath of arch-conservative Hedda Hopper, who published several unkind tidbits about Joan in her column. Joan responded by sending Hopper a live skunk with a note that read, "Won't you be my valentine? Nobody else will. I stink and so do you."
Middle sister Barbara was a dancer, who befriended a young Louise Brooks and took her under her wing. Never quite successful, she inherited her father's demons, succumbing to alcohol and possible mental illness. When Joan was looking after Barbara after one of her binges, an uncompassionate Connie told her, "Anyone with sense just needs to look at father and realize it was wise to abstain!" Barbara made several suicide attempts, and her death in 1958 at the age of 51, was, according to Brooks, her fifth and most successful attempt. She was the mother of talkshow host Morton Downey, Jr.