Kathy Bates

Kathy Bates (born June 28, 1948, Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.) American actress of stage, screen, and television, especially known for her portrayals of strong women who act against the social milieu. She won an Academy Award for best actress for her chilling performance of an obsessed fan in Misery (1990).

Early life and stage work

Bates was raised in Memphis and later studied theatre at Southern Methodist University in Dallas (B.F.A., 1969). In 1970 she moved to New York City, where she worked odd jobs while pursuing an acting career. She landed minor stage roles and in 1971 appeared in Taking Off, the first American film of Czech-born director Miloš Forman. Her first Off-Broadway role was Joanne in Vanities (1976), which helped her secure a role in the film Straight Time (1978). Bates appeared in numerous theatre and film productions during the late 1970s and the ’80s, including the successful plays Crimes of the Heart (1979); ’Night, Mother (1983), for which she received a Tony Award nomination; and Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (1988).

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Films

In 1990 Bates established herself as a powerful screen presence in the film adaptation of Stephen King’s Misery. She played Annie Wilkes, a psychotic fan who rescues a best-selling novelist (played by James Caan) after a car accident but turns on him when she finds that he has killed her favourite character in his latest novel. In addition to an Academy Award, she also won a Golden Globe for her performance. Throughout the 1990s Bates showed her versatility in a number of films, playing a forlorn Southern housewife in Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), a maid accused of murdering her employer in Dolores Claiborne (1995; adapted from a novel by King), and an outspoken socialite in Titanic (1997). She received critical acclaim and an Oscar nomination for her role as Libby Holden, an idealistic political operative, in Primary Colors (1998).

Bates later acted in such films as About Schmidt (2002), for which she received another Academy Award nomination; Failure to Launch (2006); and The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), a remake of the 1951 classic. In 2008 Bates took a supporting role in Revolutionary Road, portraying a real estate agent in 1950s suburbia. She subsequently appeared in the sports drama The Blind Side (2009); the romantic comedies Valentine’s Day (2010) and A Little Bit of Heaven (2011); Woody Allen’s fantasy Midnight in Paris, in which she portrayed the writer Gertrude Stein; and the raunchy comedies Tammy (2014) and Bad Santa 2 (2016).

In the Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic On the Basis of Sex (2018), Bates portrayed Dorothy Kenyon, a lawyer and women’s rights activist. She then was cast as Texas Gov. Miriam (“Ma”) Ferguson in the Netflix film The Highwaymen (2019), about two former Texas Rangers searching for the outlaws Bonnie and Clyde. In Richard Jewell (2019), a biopic directed by Clint Eastwood, Bates gave an Oscar-nominated performance as the devoted mother of a security guard who was wrongly suspected of orchestrating the Atlanta Olympic Games bombing of 1996. In addition, Bates’s voice was featured in a number of films, including the animated adaptation of E.B. White’s classic story Charlotte’s Web (2006), Bee Movie (2007), and The Golden Compass (2007).

Television

Bates also worked in television. Her credits as a TV director included the movie Dash and Lilly (1999), about the writers Dashiell Hammett and Lillian Hellman, and episodes of the HBO drama Six Feet Under (2001–05), in which she also acted. In 2010–11 Bates had a recurring role on the sitcom The Office, and in 2011–12 she starred in the TV drama Harry’s Law. For her 2012 guest appearance on Two and a Half Men, she received her first Emmy Award. In 2013 she joined American Horror Story for its third season (Coven), portraying the real-life Madame Delphine LaLaurie, a socialite who tortured and killed slaves in antebellum New Orleans. The role earned her an Emmy for outstanding supporting actress in a miniseries or movie. In 2014 Bates returned as a bearded woman for the fourth season (Freak Show), and she portrayed the manager of a haunted hotel in the fifth season (Hotel). She also was cast in the sixth and eighth seasons: Roanoke and Apocalypse, respectively.

In 2017 Bates appeared in another TV anthology series, Feud. In the first season—Bette and Joan, about the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford—she played Joan Blondell. During this time she also starred as the owner of a medical marijuana dispensary in Disjointed (2017–18).