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Florence Bates

Florence Bates

Actor · 1888 – 1954 · 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.

Movies24

  • Movie7.9

    Rebecca

    1940 · 2K votes

  • Movie6.8
  • Movie6.9

    Heaven Can Wait

    1943 · 252 votes

  • Movie7.0

    On the Town

    1949 · 301 votes

  • Movie7.2

    Portrait of Jennie

    1948 · 125 votes

  • Movie7.2

    A Letter to Three Wives

    1949 · 178 votes

  • Movie7.2

    Mr. Lucky

    1943 · 49 votes

  • Movie6.6

    Kitty Foyle

    1940 · 56 votes

  • Movie3.6

    Paris Model

    1953 · 5 votes

  • Movie7.2

    I Remember Mama

    1948 · 66 votes

  • Movie7.1

    The Mask of Dimitrios

    1944 · 57 votes

  • Movie6.2
  • Movie7.6

    The Devil and Miss Jones

    1941 · 66 votes

  • Movie6.9

    The Tall Target

    1951 · 47 votes

  • Movie5.5

    Tonight and Every Night

    1945 · 21 votes

  • Movie5.6

    The Second Woman

    1950 · 36 votes

  • Movie4.4

    Whistle Stop

    1946 · 28 votes

  • Movie6.2

    The Son of Monte Cristo

    1940 · 13 votes

  • Movie6.0

    Lullaby of Broadway

    1951 · 18 votes

  • Movie6.1

    The Man I Love

    1946 · 29 votes

  • Movie7.2

    Cluny Brown

    1946 · 106 votes

  • Movie6.0

    Slightly Dangerous

    1943 · 8 votes

  • Movie6.1

    My Dear Secretary

    1948 · 26 votes

  • Movie5.5

    Les Miserables

    1952 · 18 votes

Series3

  • TV6.8

    Four Star Playhouse

    1952 · 11 votes

  • TV7.9

    I Love Lucy

    1951 · 264 votes

  • TV8.0

    Dick Tracy

    1950 · 2 votes