🎬Florence Bates

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Florence Bates (born Florence Rabe, April 15, 1888 – January 31, 1954) was an American film and stage character actress who often played grande dame characters in supporting roles.

Her path to becoming an actress had many turns. She had a degree in Mathematics, taught school until married, then became the first Texas female lawyer. Then she became a bilingual radio commentator. After her husband lost her fortune, she and her husband opened a bakery in Los Angeles.

In the mid-1930s, Bates auditioned for and won the role of Miss Bates in a Pasadena Playhouse adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma. When she decided to continue working with the theatre group, she changed her professional name to that of the first character she played on stage. In 1939, she was introduced to Alfred Hitchcock, who cast her in her first major screen role, the vain dowager Mrs. Van Hopper, in Rebecca (1940).

Bates appeared in more than sixty films over the course of the next thirteen years. Among her cinema credits are Kitty Foyle, Love Crazy, The Moon and Sixpence, Mr. Lucky, Heaven Can Wait, Lullaby of Broadway, Mister Big, Since You Went Away, Kismet, Saratoga Trunk, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Winter Meeting, I Remember Mama, Portrait of Jennie, A Letter to Three Wives, On the Town, and Les Misérables. In television, Bates had a regular role on The Hank McCune Show and made guest appearances on I Love Lucy, My Little Margie, I Married Joan and Our Miss Brooks.

1
9
3
1

1
9
3
2

1
9
3
3

1
9
3
4

1
9
3
5

1
9
3
6

1
9
3
7

1
9
3
8

1
9
3
9

1
9
4
0

1
9
4
1

1
9
4
2

1
9
4
3

1
9
4
4

1
9
4
5

1
9
4
6

1
9
4
7

1
9
4
8

1
9
4
9

1
9
5
0

1
9
5
1

1
9
5
2

1
9
5
3

1
9
5
4

1
9
5
5

1
9
5
6

1
9
5
7

1
9
5
8

1
9
5
9

1
9
6
0

Recent movies

#	Name	Character	Rating
1	The San Francisco Story (1952)	Sadie	-	-
2	Les Miserables (1952)	Madame Bonnet	-	-
3	The Tall Target (1951)	Mrs. Charlotte Alsop		4
4	The Second Woman (1950)	Amelia Foster		6
5	A Letter to Three Wives (1949)	Mrs. Manleigh		7
6	On the Town (1949)	Madame Dilyovska		7
7	Portrait of Jennie (1948)	Mrs. Jekes		6
8	I Remember Mama (1948)	Florence Dana Moorhead		4
9	The Brasher Doubloon (1947)	Mrs. Murdock		8
10	The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947)	Mrs. Griswold		5.3
11	The Man I Love (1946)	Mrs. Thorpe (uncredited)		4
12	The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946)	Rose		4
13	Whistle Stop (1946)	Molly Veech		3
14	Cluny Brown (1946)	Dowager at Ames's Party		6
15	The Mask of Dimitrios (1944)	Madame Elise Chavez		6
16	Heaven Can Wait (1943)	Mrs. Edna Craig (uncredited)		6
17	The Moon and Sixpence (1942)	Tiare Johnson		6
18	The Devil and Miss Jones (1941)	Store Shopper		5
19	Rebecca (1940)	Edythe Van Hopper		7.4
20	Kitty Foyle (1940)	Customer		5