Dawn Bender
Encyclopedia
Dawn Bender is an American film, stage, and radio actress, most famous for the role of Margaret on the radio drama
One Man's Family
and Betty Morgan in Teenagers from Outer Space
.
. She landed her first role as an infant playing the role of baby Lisa in Joe May's 1937 film Confession
, where she was featured alongside such greats as Basil Rathbone
, Ian Hunter
and "box-office poison" Kay Francis
.
At age of 7, Bender was cast as little Margaret Herbert in the popular radio drama
One Man's Family. The role would make her a household name, and she would continue to portray the role of Margaret for 17 years, through the series' conclusion in 1959. A member of the "500 Club", composed of child actors who had appeared in at least 500 radio shows, she was also featured in a number of films, including Till We Meet Again (1944), A Song to Remember
(1945), George Sanders
caper The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945), Suspense
(1946), and John Wayne
drama Island in the Sky
(1953). She also appeared in a number of stage plays throughout the Los Angeles area, and had cameos on more than a dozen radio dramas.
On June 26, 1953, Bender married fellow Pasadena City College
student and future Gunsmoke
actor Warren Vanders (né VanderSchuit); she was only 18 at the time. The couple went their separate ways by spring of 1955, after they had both transferred to Pepperdine University
.
's semi-autobiographical film The Actress
, based on her novel Years Ago. The film was directed by hard-hitting George Cukor
, and starred heavyweights Spencer Tracy
, Jean Simmons
, and young Anthony Perkins
. By 1955, Dawn was ready to settle down again, this time with Jerry Anderson, another drama student at Pepperdine; they went on to have two children during their marriage.
Despite her career's upswing and her status as an up-and-coming ingenue
, Dawn was tiring of the acting scene, and prepared to retire to married life. In 1956, she was recruited by a friend of a friend to act in Tom Graeff
's second feature Teenagers from Outer Space. Finally cast in a leading role, Dawn would play Betty Morgan, a headstrong girl who helps a rebel alien save earth from imminent destruction. She's credited in the film under the name "Dawn Anderson", using her married name to avoid strict SAG
rules. (Another actor on Teenagers, King Moody
, did not fare so well — in 1962 he and four other SAG actors were fined by the guild for working below pay scale.)
The film debuted in 1959 but by then, Bender's career was winding down. She starred in her last play, André Gide
's The Immoralist
in 1962, and retired shortly after.
She earned a teaching degree from Loyola Marymount University
in the 1970s, and eventually went on to become a schoolteacher in Los Angeles county, where she taught for almost 40 years. She has since retired and still lives in the Los Angeles area with her third husband of many decades, retired Loyola professor Emmett Jacobs.
Radio drama
Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...
One Man's Family
One Man's Family
One Man's Family, is a long-running American radio soap opera. It was heard for almost three decades, from 1932 to 1959. Created by Carlton E. Morse, it was the longest-running uninterrupted serial in the history of American radio...
and Betty Morgan in Teenagers from Outer Space
Teenagers from Outer Space
Teenagers from Outer Space is a 1959 science-fiction film about an extraterrestrial space ship landing on Earth to use it as a farm for its food supply. The crew of the ship includes teenagers, two of whom oppose each other in their activities. The independent film was originally distributed by...
.
Early life and career
Bender was born in Glendale, CaliforniaGlendale, California
Glendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city population is 191,719, down from 194,973 at the 2000 census. making it the third largest city in Los Angeles County and the 22nd largest city in the state of California...
. She landed her first role as an infant playing the role of baby Lisa in Joe May's 1937 film Confession
Confession (film)
Confession is a 1937 drama film starring Kay Francis, Ian Hunter, Basil Rathbone and Jane Bryan. It was directed by Joe May and is a remake of the German film Mazurka starring Pola Negri....
, where she was featured alongside such greats as Basil Rathbone
Basil Rathbone
Sir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...
, Ian Hunter
Ian Hunter (actor)
Ian Hunter was a British character actor.Among dozens of film roles, his best-remembered appearances include That Certain Woman with Bette Davis, The Adventures of Robin Hood , The Little Princess and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde...
and "box-office poison" Kay Francis
Kay Francis
Kay Francis was an American stage and film actress. After a brief period on Broadway in the late 1920s, she moved to film and achieved her greatest success between 1930 and 1936, when she was the number one female star at the Warner Brothers studio, and the highest paid American film actress...
.
At age of 7, Bender was cast as little Margaret Herbert in the popular radio drama
Radio drama
Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...
One Man's Family. The role would make her a household name, and she would continue to portray the role of Margaret for 17 years, through the series' conclusion in 1959. A member of the "500 Club", composed of child actors who had appeared in at least 500 radio shows, she was also featured in a number of films, including Till We Meet Again (1944), A Song to Remember
A Song to Remember
A Song to Remember is a 1945 Columbia Pictures biographical film which tells a fictionalised life story of Polish pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin...
(1945), George Sanders
George Sanders
George Sanders was a British actor.George Sanders may also refer to:*George Sanders , Victoria Cross recipient in World War I...
caper The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945), Suspense
Suspense (1946 film)
Suspense is a film noir directed by Frank Tuttle. The ice-skating-themed movie starred Barry Sullivan and former Olympic skater Belita , who would team up again in 1947 for the film, The Gangster. It was also the last film appearance of actor Eugene Pallette...
(1946), and John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
drama Island in the Sky
Island in the Sky (1953 film)
Island in The Sky is a 1953 American aviation adventure/drama film written by Ernest K. Gann based on his 1944 novel of the same name, directed by William A. Wellman, and starring and co-produced by John Wayne. It was released by Warner Bros...
(1953). She also appeared in a number of stage plays throughout the Los Angeles area, and had cameos on more than a dozen radio dramas.
On June 26, 1953, Bender married fellow Pasadena City College
Pasadena City College
Pasadena City College is a community college in Pasadena, California, USA, located on Colorado Boulevard. PCC is the third largest community college campus in the United States. PCC was founded in 1924 as Pasadena Junior College. In 1954, Pasadena Junior College merged with another junior...
student and future Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
actor Warren Vanders (né VanderSchuit); she was only 18 at the time. The couple went their separate ways by spring of 1955, after they had both transferred to Pepperdine University
Pepperdine University
Pepperdine University is an independent, private, medium-sized university affiliated with the Churches of Christ. The university's campus overlooking the Pacific Ocean in unincorporated Los Angeles County, California, United States, near Malibu, is the location for Seaver College, the School of...
.
Later career & retirement
In 1953, Bender had a supporting role in Ruth GordonRuth Gordon
Ruth Gordon Jones , better known as Ruth Gordon, was an American actress and writer. She was perhaps best known for her film roles such as Minnie Castevet, Rosemary's overly solicitous neighbor in Rosemary's Baby, as the eccentric Maude in Harold and Maude and as the mother of Orville Boggs in the...
's semi-autobiographical film The Actress
The Actress
The Actress is an 1953 American comedy-drama film based on Ruth Gordon's autobiographical play Years Ago. Gordon herself wrote the screenplay. The film was directed by George Cukor and stars Jean Simmons, Spencer Tracy, Teresa Wright, and Anthony Perkins in his film debut.The film was nominated for...
, based on her novel Years Ago. The film was directed by hard-hitting George Cukor
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...
, and starred heavyweights Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
, Jean Simmons
Jean Simmons
Jean Merilyn Simmons, OBE was an English actress. She appeared predominantly in motion pictures, beginning with films made in Great Britain during and after World War II – she was one of J...
, and young Anthony Perkins
Anthony Perkins
Anthony Perkins was an American actor, best known for his Oscar-nominated role in Friendly Persuasion and as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho , and its three sequels.-Early life:...
. By 1955, Dawn was ready to settle down again, this time with Jerry Anderson, another drama student at Pepperdine; they went on to have two children during their marriage.
Ingenue (stock character)
See also Disingenuous, which is not quite the antonym that it may seem!The ingénue is a stock character in literature, film, and a role type in the theatre; generally a girl or a young woman who is endearingly innocent and wholesome. Ingenue may also refer to a new young actress or one typecast in...
, Dawn was tiring of the acting scene, and prepared to retire to married life. In 1956, she was recruited by a friend of a friend to act in Tom Graeff
Tom Graeff
Thomas Lockyear "Tom" Graeff was an American screenwriter, director and actor. He is known for the 1959 b-movie Teenagers from Outer Space.-Early life:...
's second feature Teenagers from Outer Space. Finally cast in a leading role, Dawn would play Betty Morgan, a headstrong girl who helps a rebel alien save earth from imminent destruction. She's credited in the film under the name "Dawn Anderson", using her married name to avoid strict SAG
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...
rules. (Another actor on Teenagers, King Moody
King Moody
Robert "King" Moody was an American actor, best known for playing Ronald McDonald in commercials in the 1970s and 1980s...
, did not fare so well — in 1962 he and four other SAG actors were fined by the guild for working below pay scale.)
The film debuted in 1959 but by then, Bender's career was winding down. She starred in her last play, André Gide
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
's The Immoralist
The Immoralist
The Immoralist is a novel by André Gide, published in France in 1902. When it was first published, it was considered shocking. What some see as a story of dereliction, others see as a tale of introspection and self-discovery.-Plot:...
in 1962, and retired shortly after.
She earned a teaching degree from Loyola Marymount University
Loyola Marymount University
Loyola Marymount University is a comprehensive co-educational private Roman Catholic university in the Jesuit and Marymount traditions located in Los Angeles, California, United States...
in the 1970s, and eventually went on to become a schoolteacher in Los Angeles county, where she taught for almost 40 years. She has since retired and still lives in the Los Angeles area with her third husband of many decades, retired Loyola professor Emmett Jacobs.
Rumors and speculation
For many years it was erroneously reported that Dawn Bender had died of alcohol-related complications in the early-1970s. This rumor probably came about because of a death from those causes of a different Dawn Bender, which occurred around the time that Ms. Bender retired from acting. This rumor was repeated in publications and articles about Teenagers from Outer Space until 2006, when a biographer located her for an interview.Filmography
- ConfessionConfession (film)Confession is a 1937 drama film starring Kay Francis, Ian Hunter, Basil Rathbone and Jane Bryan. It was directed by Joe May and is a remake of the German film Mazurka starring Pola Negri....
(Uncredited, 1937) - Till We Meet Again (Uncredited, 1944)
- A Song to RememberA Song to RememberA Song to Remember is a 1945 Columbia Pictures biographical film which tells a fictionalised life story of Polish pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin...
(Uncredited, 1945) - The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (1945)
- SuspenseSuspense (1946 film)Suspense is a film noir directed by Frank Tuttle. The ice-skating-themed movie starred Barry Sullivan and former Olympic skater Belita , who would team up again in 1947 for the film, The Gangster. It was also the last film appearance of actor Eugene Pallette...
(Uncredited, 1946) - Island in the SkyIsland in the Sky (1953 film)Island in The Sky is a 1953 American aviation adventure/drama film written by Ernest K. Gann based on his 1944 novel of the same name, directed by William A. Wellman, and starring and co-produced by John Wayne. It was released by Warner Bros...
(Uncredited, 1953) - The ActressThe ActressThe Actress is an 1953 American comedy-drama film based on Ruth Gordon's autobiographical play Years Ago. Gordon herself wrote the screenplay. The film was directed by George Cukor and stars Jean Simmons, Spencer Tracy, Teresa Wright, and Anthony Perkins in his film debut.The film was nominated for...
(1953) - Teenagers from Outer SpaceTeenagers from Outer SpaceTeenagers from Outer Space is a 1959 science-fiction film about an extraterrestrial space ship landing on Earth to use it as a farm for its food supply. The crew of the ship includes teenagers, two of whom oppose each other in their activities. The independent film was originally distributed by...
(1959)