Above: Charles Bennett in his uncredited role as the song and dance man, in Citizen Kane (1941). An RKO Radio Pictures, publicity still, photographer Alexander Kahle. Via Wikimedia Commons. [The scene in question is about 40 minutes into the film]

The 5 second version

There are few actors whose lives and careers are as muddled up in online accounts as Charles Bennett (1891-1943). He is regularly confused with others of the same name (see Note 1 below).
Charles Bennett was born in New Zealand, his wife Dottie Brown (1890-1981) in Australia and their son Mickey Bennett (1915-1950) in Canada. This thoroughly imperial family owed their presence in North America to Pollard’s Opera Company, an Australian theatrical institution of young touring actors. Like many of the Pollards performers, Charles and Dottie had stayed on in the US. Dottie retired from the stage in the 1920s. Charles Bennett continued to appear in light opera, vaudeville and then early sound films, although in the latter he was usually consigned to minor and uncredited roles. Dottie and Charles’ son Mickey became a child star of note in the 1920s and 30s. Charles’s brother Norman Bennett (1903-1984) also worked in the US film industry. 

At left: 25 year old Charles Bennett while performing with “The Bostonians” at the Saskatoon Empire Theatre, The Star-Phoenix (Saskatchewan, Canada) 22 Nov 1916, P5, via newspapers.com

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Above: The USA was one of the first nations to introduce detailed recordkeeping and the use of photographs for entry and naturalisation. These photos are taken from separate US naturalisation applications for Charles Bennett (1933), his brother Norman (1939), and son Mickey Bennett (1937- by then an adult) The corresponding photo for Dottie Brown seems to be missing. Via US National Archives, via ancestry.com and Family Search.

Charles Joseph Bennett was born in Dunedin, New Zealand in 1891, to Charles Bennett a jeweller- watchmaker, and his wife Louisa nee Potter. In 1892, the Bennetts and their three children relocated to Melbourne. A few years later they settled down at 69 Elm Street Northcote, then a suburb on Melbourne’s northern fringe. The family lived there for thirty years and three more children were born in Melbourne. There is evidence that the Bennett family fostered musical interests amongst their children, and in time, Charles came to prominence as a singer, elocutionist and comic while touring with several concert companies in eastern Australia in 1911-12. In the 1920s, Charles’ youngest brother Norman also developed a reputation as a singer.

With the Pollards

In mid 1912, Charles signed up with Nellie Chester for what would be the final Pollards Juvenile Opera performance tour of North America. Following the Pollards disastrous tour of India in 1909, Australian labour laws now restricted children from performing overseas and thus most of the performers were in their late teens or early twenties (and therefore could no longer called “Lilliputians”). Some in the company were well established Pollard performers who had travelled to North America before – including Ted and Nellie McNamara, Ethel Naylor and “Dottie” Brown.

Dottie Brown had been born Ellen (or Eileen) Brown in Melbourne in 1890, and had performed with Pollards and other juvenile groups for almost ten years, first travelling with the company on one of their lengthy tours in 1903. Compared to Charles, her profile is more typical of the young people from working class inner Melbourne who joined the company. Parents of Pollard performers were usually in unskilled jobs, and were apparently more accepting of their child’s lengthy absence on extended overseas tours. Dottie’s father was a cab driver, but in later years a painter and decorator.

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Above: “Spokane Chronicle”. 23 December 1913. Some of the performers in Nellie Chester’s final Pollard’s troupe. . Via Newspapers.com.