Morton Downey Jr. - Joan Bennett Connection

[Josette]

CNN is showing a documentary on Thursday at 9:00 PM about Morton Downey Jr., called "Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie."  I remember him, but thought he was earlier than the late 80s, when apparently he had his show.

I decided to look him up, and it turns out that his mother was Barbara Bennett, sister of Joan and Constance!

[Uncle Roger]

Someone asked Joan about him at an early Festival. She just arched her eyebrows and said that he had made quite a name for himself. No one did icy disdain quite like Joan Bennett.

[Josette]

There was a brief moment with Joan in the Downey movie.  He started as a singer, like his father, and with his first recording there was a show with a panel evaluating it.  One woman was identified as a first cousin of his, Joan, Dean Martin and someone else.  Joan briefly gave her opinion of it.

[Patti Feinberg]

Uh, was Dean Martin a family member also??

Patti

[Josette]

Patti, I'm assuming not, but don't actually know.  I couldn't make out who the other person was.  I was guessing that it was a regular panel show and perhaps they had the two relatives as part of this panel.  But, I never heard of the host or anything about it, so I'm just guessing the whole thing.

[Midnite]

The movie is on Netflix.

The panel was from a later episode of the show Jukebox Jury (the American version with host Peter Potter), thus the bigger-named entertainers.  The four judges were Joan, her daughter Melinda Markey (the first cousin you mentioned), Dean (no relation to Downey) and his oldest son Craig Martin.

[Josette]

How interesting!  They showed the name Peter Potter, but I had never heard of him.  They identified Melinda Markey, but I had no idea she was Joan's daughter.  I looked her up to see who she was and found some acting credits.  And also interesting that the other was Dean's son.

If one can't get Netflix, I'm sure CNN will be repeating it.  I'll mention it if it happens.