- Committed suicide from an overdose of pills in 1990, after suffering from acute depression abetted by her stormy marriage and subsequent divorce from the writer John Osborne. She was his fourth wife.
- Her marriage to John Osborne was a tempestuous one, and ended in considerable acrimony. Osborne let it be known that he had given her the nickname "Adolf", and continued to be vituperative about her long after her suicide - something which made him very unpopular. However, he was very friendly, right up to his own death, with her first husband, Willis Hall.
- Her ex-husbands, Willis Hall and John Osborne, bonded through their bad experiences of being married to her, and every time they heard she was thinking about remarrying, they would warn her prospective husbands about exactly what they were taking on.
- Had a long-term relationship with the much older actor Sir Godfrey Tearle (1884-1953) in the late 1940s and early 1950s before marrying screenwriter Willis Hall. In her book, Godfrey: A Special Time Remembered (1983) she described their four years together as the happiest of her life.
- Born in Penang, Federated Malay States, to British parents; her father was a rubber plantation owner.
- She starred in several of husband John Osborne's plays, winning an Evening Standard award and a Variety Club of Britain Award for her performance in "Time Present".
- In 1972, she and husband John Osborne were the victims of a home invasion when a man armed with a knife broke into their house intending to kill Osborne. On seeing him, Bennett said, "Go away. I will not be late for the ballet." Astonished, the man complied.
- Schooled at Priors Field, an independent girls' boarding school in Godalming.
- Her many classical stage roles included Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Iras in both "Caesar and Cleopatra" and "Antony and Cleopatra," Gertrude in "Hamlet," Hedda in "Hedda Gabler," Masha in "The Seagull," and Queen Elizabeth I in "Mary Stuart".
- Trained at the Amersham Repertory and Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (1944-1946) companies, she made her stage debut in 1949 at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford upon Avon.
- Bennett was cremated, and her ashes were scattered along with those of Rachel Roberts on the River Thames by Lindsay Anderson in 1992. Anderson filmed the ceremony for his final film, the documentary Is That All There Is? (1992).
- In his diaries recording the shooting of The Old Crowd (1979), Alan Bennett writes, "Rachel Roberts and Jill Bennett go off to lunch together to compare notes on their various husbands. They are like old-fashioned stars, both in expensive fur coats, and when together sly and mischievous and in league against men". Bennett singles out her performance for particular praise and depicts her as the only cast-member tough enough to stand up to director Lindsay Anderson.
- In 1992, Bennett's ashes, along with those of her friend, the actress Rachel Roberts (who also died by suicide, in 1980), were scattered by their friend Lindsay Anderson on the waters of the River Thames in London. Anderson, with several of the two actresses' professional colleagues and friends, took a boat trip down the Thames, and the ashes were scattered while musician Alan Price sang the song "Is That All There Is?" The event was included in Anderson's autobiographical BBC documentary Is That All There Is? (1992).
- Bennett made her West End debut in Now Barabbas in March 1947, and was a company member during the 1949 season at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford upon Avon.
- Made her first film, The Long Dark Hall with Rex Harrison, in 1950.
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