Florence Bates
0.8Acting

Florence Bates

Apr 13, 1888 - San Antonio, Texas, USA

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.

Credits

Cast

Media
Movie1940RebeccaEdythe Van Hopper
Movie1947The Brasher DoubloonMrs. Murdock
Movie1941Love CrazyMrs. Cooper
Movie1950Belle of Old MexicoNellie Chatfield
Movie1953Main Street to BroadwayMrs. Bessmer in Fantasy Sequence
Movie1951The Tall TargetMrs. Charlotte Alsop
Movie1944Tahiti NightsQueen Liliha
Movie1947The Secret Life of Walter MittyMrs. Griswold
Movie1944The Mask of DimitriosMadame Elise Chavez
Movie1951Lullaby of BroadwayMrs. Anna Hubbell
Movie1948I Remember MamaFlorence Dana Moorhead
Movie1948Winter MeetingMrs. Castle
Movie1945Tonight and Every NightMay Tolliver
Movie1944KismetKarsha
Movie1941The Devil and Miss JonesStore Shopper
Movie1950The Second WomanAmelia Foster
Movie1946The Diary of a ChambermaidRose
Movie1944Belle of the YukonViola Chase
Movie1949A Letter to Three WivesMrs. Manleigh
Movie1943Mr. LuckyMrs. Van Every
Movie1945San AntonioHenrietta
Movie1940The Son of Monte CristoCountess Mathilde Von Braun
Movie1941Strange AlibiKatie
Movie1946Cluny BrownDowager at Ames's Party
Movie1942The Moon and SixpenceTiare Johnson
Movie1946Whistle StopMolly Veech
Movie1941The Chocolate SoldierMadame Helene
Movie1948River LadyMa Dunnegan
Movie1952Les MiserablesMadame Bonnet
Movie1942The Tuttles of TahitiEmily
Movie1941Road ShowMrs. Newton
Movie1948The Inside StoryGeraldine Atherton
Movie1943Slightly DangerousMrs. Amanda Roanoke-Brooke
Movie1942We Were DancingMrs. Elsa Vanderlip
Movie1943Mister BigMrs. Mary Davis
Movie1942Mexican Spitfire at SeaMrs. Baldwin
Movie1953Paris ModelNora Sullivan
Movie1946Claudia and DavidNancy Riddle
Movie1948Texas, Brooklyn & HeavenMandy
Movie1945Out of This WorldHarriet Pringle
Movie1947The Judge Steps OutChita
Movie1940Calling All HusbandsEmmie Trippe
Movie1948My Dear SecretaryHorrible Hannah Reeve (the landlady)
Movie1943Heaven Can WaitMrs. Edna Craig (uncredited)
Movie1949The Girl from Jones BeachMiss Emma Shoemaker
Movie1952The San Francisco StorySadie
Movie1942My Heart Belongs to DaddyMrs. Saunders
Movie1943They Got Me CoveredGypsy Woman
Movie1940Kitty FoyleCustomer
Movie1945Saratoga TrunkSophie Bellop
Movie1946The Time, The Place and The GirlMme. Lucia Cassel
Movie1949On the TownMadame Dilyovska
Movie1947Love and LearnMrs. Bella Davis - Landlady
Movie1943His Butler's SisterLady Sloughberry
Movie1950County FairNora 'Ma' Ryan
Movie1948Portrait of JennieMrs. Jekes
Movie1951Father Takes the AirMinerva Bobbin
Movie1951Havana RoseMrs. Fillmore
Movie1946The Man I LoveMrs. Thorpe (uncredited)
TV Show1952Four Star PlayhouseOttilie1
TV Show1951I Love LucyMrs. Pettebone1
TV Show1950Dick TracyMrs. Frothingham1

Crew

No crew credits available.