Florence Bates
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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 Lo
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.
Born
Apr 13, 1888
San Antonio, Texas, USA
Died
Jan 31, 1954
Known For
Acting
Movies
60 acting
0 crew
Popularity
0.6
Known For
Rebecca
1940
as Edythe Van Hopper
Portrait of Jennie
1948
as Mrs. Jekes
On the Town
1949
as Madame Dilyovska
A Letter to Three Wives
1949
as Mrs. Manleigh
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
1947
as Mrs. Griswold
Heaven Can Wait
1943
as Mrs. Edna Craig (uncredited)
Cluny Brown
1946
as Dowager at Ames's Party
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