JOAN BENNETT 1910-1990

As the prototypical ''classy dame,'' from her '40s film noir roles (The Woman in the Window) to her mistress of the mansion on TV's Dark Shadows, Joan Bennett, who died Dec. 7 at 80, really knew her way around a set of blood-red fingernails and a slinky wardrobe. Her downshift from blond to brunette led her to stardom as a seductress-her thick hair seemed to long for a pillow and her husky voice could boil an egg. All that ended in 1951, when her husband, Walter Wanger, shot and wounded her agent, Jennings Lang, in a jealous rage. When the studios stopped calling, Bennett took her act on the road in plays, as classy in semi-obscurity as she'd been in the limelight.