
Barbara Bates
Actor · 1925 – 1969 · Denver, Colorado, USA
Barbara Jane Bates (August 6, 1925 – March 18, 1969) was an American singer and actress, best known for her portrayal of Phoebe in the 1950 drama film All About Eve and as Katy Morgan on It's a Great Life (1954–1956). The eldest of three daughters, Bates was born in Denver, Colorado. While growing up in Denver, she studied ballet and worked as a teen fashion model. The shy teen was persuaded to enter a local beauty contest and won, receiving two round-trip train tickets to Hollywood, California. Two days before returning to Denver, Bates met Cecil Coan, a United Artists publicist, whom she would later marry. In September 1944, 19-year-old Bates signed a contract with Universal Pictures after Cecil Coan introduced her to producer Walter Wanger. Soon after, she was cast as one of the "Seven Salome Girls" in the 1945 drama, Salome Where She Danced starring Yvonne De Carlo. Around this time, she fell in love with Coan, who was married with two sons and two daughters. In March 1945, Coan divorced his wife Helen Coan and secretly married Bates, on March 25, 1945, in Chihuahua, Mexico. Bates spent the next few years as a stock actress, landing bit parts in movies and doing cheesecake layouts for magazines such as Yank, the Army Weekly and Life. One of those photo sessions caught the eye of executives at Warner Bros., which signed her in 1947. Warner Bros. highlighted her "girl-next-door" image and her acting career took off. She appeared with some of the biggest stars of the day, including Bette Davis in June Bride and Danny Kaye in The Inspector General. In late 1949, Bates auditioned for the small role of Phoebe in Fox's upcoming All About Eve. In competition for the part were Zsa Zsa Gabor and others, but Bates impressed the producers and was given the part. She made a short but important appearance as the devious schemer, Phoebe, at the end of the film. Bates's image is enshrined in the film's last scene, posing in front of a three-way mirror, while holding the award won by her idol Eve Harrington, played by Anne Baxter. After her appearance in All About Eve, Bates co-starred in Cheaper by the Dozen, and its sequel Belles on Their Toes, with Jeanne Crain and Myrna Loy. In 1951, she landed a role opposite MacDonald Carey and Claudette Colbert in the comedy Let's Make It Legal. Fox refused to lend out Bates for the role of the suicidal ballerina saved by Charlie Chaplin's aging vaudevillian in Limelight (1952). She co-starred with Donna Reed as the love interests of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in the 1953 hit comedy The Caddy. In January 1967, Bates's husband died of cancer. Devastated by his death, Bates grew more depressed, and she again became suicidal. Later that year, she returned to Denver and fell out of public view. For a time, Bates worked as a secretary, dental assistant, and hospital aide. In December 1968, she married for the second time, to a childhood friend, sportscaster William Reed. Despite her new marriage and location, Bates remained increasingly despondent and depressed. On March 18, 1969, just months after her marriage to Reed, Barbara Bates died from suicide in her mother's garage by carbon monoxide poisoning. She was 43 years old. She is buried at Crown Hill Cemetery in Jefferson County, Colorado.
Movies24
Movie8.1DramaFrom the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington is determined to take the reins of power away from the great actress Margo Channing. Eve maneuvers her way into Margo's Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo's director boyfriend, her playwright and his wife. Only the cynical drama critic sees through Eve, admiring her audacity and perfect pattern of deceit.
All About Eve
1950 · 1.8K votes
Movie6.8AdventureRomanceSpanish Lothario Don Juan, the legendary lover and adventurer returns to Spain following a scandal and comes to the aid of his queen, who is under threat from sinister forces.
Adventures of Don Juan
1948 · 45 votes
Movie6.4ComedyDrama"Cheaper by the Dozen", based on the real-life story of the Gilbreth family, follows them from Providence, Rhode Island, to Montclair, New Jersey, and details the amusing anecdotes found in large families.
Cheaper by the Dozen
1950 · 89 votes
Movie5.7ComedyRomanceA woman divorces her husband of 20 years because he gambles too much.
Let's Make It Legal
1951 · 26 votes
Movie6.9DramaA small-town doctor helps a deaf-mute farm girl learn to communicate.
Johnny Belinda
1948 · 77 votes
Movie6.4CrimeRomanceA smooth-talking French thief wangles his way into an important position as prefect of police.
A Scandal in Paris
1946 · 32 votes
Movie6.7ComedyRomanceGeorgia Garrett is sent by jealous wife Elvira Kent on an ocean cruise to masquerade as herself while she secretly stays home to catch her husband cheating. Meanwhile equally suspicious husband Michael Kent has sent a private eye on the same cruise to catch his wife cheating. Love and confusion ensues along with plenty of musical numbers.
Romance on the High Seas
1948 · 36 votes
Movie7.1RomanceComedyA magazine's staff, including bickering ex-lovers Linda and Carey, cover an Indiana wedding, which goes slightly wrong.
June Bride
1948 · 12 votes
Movie6.3ComedyMusicAlthough the son of a skilled golfer and an outstanding player in his own right, Harvey Miller is too nervous to play in front of a gallery, so he acts as coach and caddy for Joe Anthony, his girlfriend's brother.
The Caddy
1953 · 63 votes
Movie7.3DocumentaryHistoryThe story of how Norma Jeane Mortenson became Marilyn Monroe (1926-62), a lucid path of self-discovery, from anonymity to stardom: the painful birth of a myth.
Movie6.6ComedyRomanceAn illiterate stooge in a traveling medicine show wanders into a strange town and is picked up on a vagrancy charge. The town's corrupt officials mistake him for the inspector general whom they think is traveling in disguise. Fearing he will discover they've been pocketing tax money, they make several bungled attempts to kill him.
The Inspector General
1949 · 58 votes
Movie4.1WesternWarDuring the Austrian-Prussian war, Anna Marie is a dancer who is forced to flee her country after she is accused of being a spy. She ends up in a lawless western town in Arizona, where she uses her charms and dancing skills to transform herself into "Salome" during her dance routines.
Salome, Where She Danced
1945 · 7 votes
Movie6.6WesternAfter a group of convicts escapes from prison, they take refuge in the wilderness. While most of the crew are ruthless sociopaths, Jim Canfield is an innocent man who was jailed under false pretenses. When Canfield and his fellow fugitives reach an isolated farming settlement where the men are all away, it creates tension with the local women. Things get direr when rumors of hidden money arise, and Canfield discovers that the man who framed him is part of the community.
The Secret of Convict Lake
1951 · 31 votes
Movie7.1ComedyThe "Cheaper by the Dozen" crew is back, sans Clifton Webb. Lillian is struggling to make ends meet without her husband's income, while Anne, Martha, and even Ernestine find romance.
Belles on Their Toes
1952 · 17 votes
Movie6.5ActionWesternLogan Cates sets out to rescue a white woman captured by Apache Indians and prevent a war. On the way he is joined by a few civilians and a small band of soldiers at a water hole. They are ambushed and laid siege to by Apache. As their food and water supplies dwindle a storm arrives which enables Cates to put an escape plan into action.
Apache Territory
1958 · 18 votes
Movie6.7ComedyCrimeWhile watching from her train window, Nikki Collins witnesses a murder in a nearby building. When she alerts the police, they think she has read one too many mystery novels. She then enlists a popular mystery writer to help her solve the crime on her own, but her sleuthing attracts the attentions of suitors and killers.
Lady on a Train
1945 · 53 votes
Movie6.6DramaMusicA rich, young beauty, Louise Durant, follows the man she loves and hopes to marry to Zurich where he studies violin at the conservatory. A piano student at the conservatory falls madly in love with Louise. The violinist loves his music first and Louise second. The pianist loves Louise first and his music second. Louise must ultimately choose which man she wants.
Rhapsody
1954 · 28 votes
Movie7.3ComedyThree sailors finally get some shore leave, and go in search of fun and girls.
All Ashore
1953 · 3 votes
Movie6.4WesternFour undesirables run out of a mining town and become marooned in a deserted mountain cabin during a raging snowstorm.
The Outcasts of Poker Flat
1952 · 8 votes
Movie6.1CrimeThrillerYoung auto mechanic Dan Brady takes $20 from a cash register at work to go on a date with blonde femme fatale Vera Novak. Brady intends to put the money back before it is missed, but the garage's bookkeeper shows up earlier than scheduled. As Brady scrambles to cover evidence of his petty theft, he fast finds himself drawn into an ever worsening "quicksand" of crime.
Quicksand
1950 · 40 votes
Movie4.8ComedyDramaDave Joslin, the managing editor of a big-city newspaper, is demoted and moved to the Miss Lonely Hearts column-writing department by the newspaper's publisher, J. B. Grennell, because Joslin refuses to desist in printing stories linking a gangster, Matthew Keever, to a murder. But Joslin, aided by Kit Williams, a newspaper woman with whom he is in love, investigate the murder case on their own time.
The House Across the Street
1949 · 6 votes
Movie6.7RomanceDramaA minister from the Deep South is assigned a new parish and moves with his wife to a town in Georgia's Blue Ridge Mountains, where he tends to the spiritual and emotional needs of his small flock.
I'd Climb the Highest Mountain
1951 · 10 votes
Movie6.5MysteryCrimeWhen an attractive young girl is murdered, suspicion falls on several members of the local tennis club. It falls to Police Inspector Halloran to sort out all the red herrings, and finally after a confrontation at the top of the local church spire, arrest the culprit. Another fascinating look at what life was like in Britain during the 50's.
Town on Trial
1957 · 25 votes
Movie6.5ComedyDramaAesop of fable fame poses as an old man and woos away a princess who wants a king for his gold.
Night in Paradise
1946 · 2 votes
Series4
TV7.4Action & AdventureCrimeSimon Templar is The Saint, a handsome, sophisticated, debonair, modern-day Robin Hood who recovers ill-gotten wealth and redistributes it to those in need.
The Saint
1962 · 136 votes
TV5.8DramaAn anthology series that explored the ways sudden and unexpected wealth changed life for better or for worse. It told the stories of people who were given one million dollars from a benefactor who insisted they never know him, with one exception.
The Millionaire
1955 · 4 votes
TV7.5DramaFamilyStudio 57 is an American anthology series that was broadcast on the now-defunct DuMont Television Network from September 1954 to September 1955, and in syndication from 1955 to 1956.
Studio 57
1954 · 2 votes
- TV8.0Comedy
It's a Great Life is an American situation comedy which aired on NBC from 1954 to 1956. Frances Bavier, six years before being cast as Aunt Bee in CBS's The Andy Griffith Show, played a somewhat similar role as Mrs. Amy Morgan, the owner of a boarding house.
It's a Great Life
1954 · 1 votes