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Show With the Blood of So Many X fa WSjSMMX 111 Dancing Ancestors Throb-y k Sl I bing in Her Veins This , .. BFfllB I Still '''r . " Rr"" Longer 'fwr - THE phrase "A victim of heredity" usually calls to mind sorry pictures pic-tures of drug fiends and drunkards drunk-ards and other pitiable creatures whoso slavery to their passions or their appetites appe-tites has wrecked their lives. But with Miss Constance Bennett the , graceful, flower-like young beauty, who ' recently made her debut as a professional profes-sional dancer in New York, the phrase carries no such suggestion, and yei Miss Bennett is quite as much a victim of inherited tendencies as any drunkard or drug fiend. In the veins of this charming young girl flows the blood of eight generations of dancers, men and women who in their day won the world's plaudits for thoir mastery of the dancing art. The result of this inheritance in-heritance from her --. family's past, gath- ering force through the years and reaching reach-ing its climax in h . her. Is to make her never quite so happy ' as when her feet are lightly tripping, , . her whole body j swaying in time with the rhyth- mic beats of ' music. Pretty Con- f itance Ben n e 1 1 can hardly help dancing any more than she can help breathing. It it a part of her life, something bred in her bv those 1 I'M M f mysterious forces which we call heredity. The influence in-fluence it exerts ; over her la too y all-powerful for flesh and blood to resist. And so, turning her bark on the soft butterfly life of a i ' 4 N fashionable society girl which q her mother had planned for i her, Miss Bennett has set her f ' ., feet on the road so many of her ancestors have trod and has become a professional dancer. She made her first appearance the other evening in the supper room of a famous New York restaurant and won at onre the most enthusiastic en-thusiastic praise for hor beauty and grarc. Miss Bennett is the daughter of Richard Rich-ard Bennett, one of America's most distinguished dis-tinguished actors, and her mother, known on the stage as Adricnne Morrison, is an actress of ability. But the Bennetts possess something beside? their high standing in the theatrical profession. They are persons of wealth and refinement refine-ment who long have been accepted as members of one of the most exclusive circles of fashionable society. From the day Constance was born her parents' ambitions were centered on her becoming, not an actress or any other kind of a professional woman, but a belle of the smart set, who should do nothing except enjoy the frivolities of life until the time came for her to make a brilliant bril-liant marriage. No pains or expense were spared from earliest girlhood to fit her for the place in society which her parents' wealth and prestige assured her She was sent to one of the most fashionable of hoardin : schools, arid then to Europe for the finishing fin-ishing yhich is considered so essential for thysmart debutante. When she tin-ally tin-ally made her debut last season she was n distinct spnation and her mother was 1 SJAJ;li . A ' 0 k i 1 1 f i V i ': ' , ; tf ' Another photo-graph photo-graph of the charming charm-ing girl whom heredity hered-ity has driven from fashionable so-iety so-iety life to a professional career delighted to think that her daughter was so auspiciously launched on just the career ca-reer she had always wanted for her. But to her great disappointment Constance Con-stance found the life of a social butterfly butter-fly not at all to her liking. The endless round of dances and dinners, teas and receptions bored her to death . She felt tha, .she could not endure any longer an existence which impressed her as stupid and senseless. To put her beauty and grace to some use, to make them add to the vorld's joy as so many of her ancestors ances-tors had done that 6eemed the only thing to make life worth living. When she confided her discontent' to her parents she at first got no sympathy. But after a long time she succeeded in winning her father to her side. He became be-came convinced that the forces of heredity hered-ity at work in his daughter were too strong to be combated and that she would nearer be a happy woman unless nature were allowed to take its course and make her the professional dancer she apparently was ordained to be. Mrs. Bennett, however, refused to become reconciled to any such change in her daughter's plans, and when the girl Constance I Bennett and famous I ,.; figures Jl , in her , W family's that are v exerting - . such an j jJZggfiyS, influence over her f! x 'It l Fvliss P-enncti with her parents, ?Ac. and Mrs. J? Richard Rennett, and ; her two younger sisters made her profes- sional debut the other evening it was in di-rect di-rect defiance of her mother's wishes. The mother would not even accompany ac-company her husband to see her daughter's daugh-ter's triumph, declaring that she could not bear the thought of watching her dance fur pay and to amuse the public. Who were these dancing ancestors of Constance Bennett's who made the aimless, idle existence of a society belle so intolerable for her? They were men r - lT, ISP iff "-7 JT jSJ i r -jf J and woman whose names were as well known to past generations as that of this descendant of theirs may some day be to this. Perhaps some keen psychic eye might have detected their shadowy forms flitting about Miss Bennett as she made her debut in New York the other night and casting looks of spectral w- jjr f admiration at the grace she gave to dances unknown in their day on earth. One of the quaintly garbed figures that might have been seen would have been that of William Wood, famous in England as the foremost pantomimist of his day, and known hero in America some years later as a harlequin of great meru. rrom th world beroo-1 tv. perhaps he returned for a mo-Broadway mo-Broadway to watch with pndetS ly young descendant of his M 7-! 10 gracefully in the rhythm ol hl N'ear him stood the tiny ftnJ girl, wearing the wlde-spresd J and the lace pantilettea of t!a 19th century. This child of 1 clutrhe.l t.ghtly the hand 0f t i graceful uornan who ab0 vUi d icer with loving interest. The ta!! woman was "ConaifV J vrreat-grandmother. Sara CtmpsM, mous in Scotland and E:B a dancer. The little girl was dom9 than Rose Wood, who at this ninM had already become a premie M seuse of both England and Aser aM The fastly vanishing group (.f rfl ' inhabitants" still cherish loTin of Rose Wood's beautify ii-M Down in the treasure hold of Wallack's theatei herc rSM 1 hra-eii, irorftnima b-annc hcrsfl nd harm n; ph. ,..;-,,,-. , f itiM h of the tradition Adding still more lo !'ne troofl that forwiB il H' nnett into a dncinjf carr.r'jM iro the famous , ,.-(rv M volume of American drar.virB devotes 1 hv 1 ':d')-- ti 'iB distinguished figures RcjiB ' 1 t.rui '."ie 'CksB 1 gieat-aunts --.n.! they represSfB I art of stae d,i icing to 'i? t(B J I point it reached for many iH S Their names were as fioiiH lovers of the theater of thtiisfl it Mnude A l: m 011 J ti. BsB mores are to the present ReneritisH . tl so many of hor onocvrsaK ing down a passion for dancincuM stance Bennett's birthright. L indei that she found it irnisHB' adopting a professional careaB her twinkling feet? I By her sudden desertion of tasS able society -h.' hns furni-hfd tbteB morsel of tea-ca? rM This charming young T,E irresistible heredity w "natural born dancers fcv appearance every now "a ' has never taken a dancing '- M vet she is already hailed a. most accomplished dar.c en i p has ever been pr.vileg d The fact, about her JJW teresl stud nts pt n - ,..;Zirt Ity as well as to lovers my |