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Love and Jealousy: Inside the 1951 Shooting of Joan Bennett’s Agent Jennings Lang Amid Their Affair
Actress Joan Bennett was sitting behind the wheel of her green Cadillac in the parking lot of a Beverly Hills office building when two gunshots rang out. Her handsome agent, Jennings Lang, who had just walked her to the car, dropped to the ground screaming in agony.
“Get away from here and leave us alone,” she shouted when she recognized the gunman as her husband, producer Walter Wanger.
Until the 1951 shooting, Joan and Walter had been a Hollywood power couple. “They did a succession of films together that Walter produced and Joan starred in,” explains Scott Huver, author of Beverly Hills Noir: Crime, Sin, & Scandal in 90210. “On the surface, they had a very happy home life. They had two kids and a beautiful home in Holmby Hills.” The couple entertained often, hosting dinners for friends and neighbors, including Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.
At his peak with MGM Studios, Walter’s salary was second only to Louis B. Mayer’s, but his finances took a bad turn in 1948 after Joan of Arc, his film starring Ingrid Bergman, flopped due to her scandalous romance with director Roberto Rossellini.
“The bank was threatening to take [Walter and Joan’s] home,” says Huver. “That’s where the breakdown in their marriage began.”
Joan found herself appealing to her agent for help with her career — and the relationship turned romantic. The pair would often rendezvous at an unoccupied apartment owned by a friend of Jennings’. “It was pretty obvious because they just walked around the corner [from the agent’s office],” says Huver, who adds that Walter became suspicious and hired a private detective to follow his wife. “I think he snapped once he got the evidence in his hand.”
The Aftermath of Joan Bennett’s Affair
After the shooting, Joan summoned medical help for Jennings, and her husband was arrested. “Ironically, the parking lot for the agency was directly across the street from Beverly Hills City Hall,” says Huver.
Jennings, who had been hit in the thigh and groin, survived. Walter pleaded temporary insanity when he was tried for assault with a deadly weapon and served only four months in prison.
After his release, he went on to produce two hit behind-bars movies, Riot in Cell Block Il and I Want to Live!, which won an Oscar for Susan Hayward.
Jennings remained unscathed, too. Despite the injury to his groin, he later fathered a son. He also became a big producer, scoring hits with Clint Eastwood‘s Play Misty for Me and High Plains Drifter.
Their scandal also lived on by inspiring the 1960 film The Apartment, starring Shirley MacLaine, Jack Lemmon and Fred MacMurray. “The film went on to win five Oscars, including Best Picture,” notes Huver.
Only Joan paid the price. “I might as well have pulled the trigger myself,” quipped the actress, who couldn’t get hired on films following the scandal. She turned to theater and remained married to Walter until 1965. A few years later, Joan achieved small-screen stardom on TV’s Dark Shadows.
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