Old Hollywood actor Joan Bennett’s life was one of fateful coincidence, as explored in the first episode of Vanity Fair’s podcast Love Is a Crime. It was the 1933 adaptation of Little Women—a film meant for Joan’s older sister Constance—that landed Joan her big break and caught the eye of film producer Walter Wanger. He would become both her third husband and the man to send her life into a tailspin on a December night in 1951.
And so begins Love Is a Crime, a 10-episode podcast series coproduced by V.F. and Cadence13. You Must Remember This podcast creator Karina Longworth and filmmaker Vanessa Hope, the granddaughter of Joan and Walter, dive into the circumstances surrounding one of Hollywood’s wildest scandals. The voice cast includes Zooey Deschanel as Joan, Jon Hamm as Walter, and Griffin Dunne as agent Jennings Lang, the man caught in the middle of this couple’s marital strife. They’re joined by Mara Wilson as Joan’s older movie-star sister, Constance, and Adam Mortimer as Joan’s troubled father, Richard.
In this week’s introductory episode, “Private Worlds,” Longworth and Hope discuss the origins of Joan and Walter’s respective careers in Hollywood and their infamous relationship. All of these elements collide on the set of the 1935 film Private Worlds, a mental health drama produced by Walter and costarring Joan that has striking parallels to their marriage’s dissolution. As Hope puts it, Joan “was born to fall in love with Walter.”
A synopsis of the episode follows:
The youngest daughter of a famed acting family, Joan Bennett only becomes a movie star out of financial necessity, when she finds herself a divorced single mom at the age of 18. Entering the business at the dawn of talking pictures, Joan would work steadily, but struggle to emerge from the shadow of her glamorous older sister, Constance. Everything changes when Joan falls in love with Walter Wanger, an independent producer and champion of progressive politics who wants to change Hollywood from within—and who puts Joan through a cosmetic transformation that will change her career, and her life.
Listen to the episode below, and be sure to tune in next Tuesday, August 24, for the continuation of Walter and Joan’s twist-filled marriage—and the headline-making scandal that followed. Subscribe at listen.vanityfair.com/loveisacrime or wherever you get your podcasts.
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