Florence Bates
ActingFrom 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.
Known For
Rebecca
Edythe Van Hopper
On the Town
Madame Dilyovska
The Girl from Jones Beach
Miss Emma Shoemaker
Kitty Foyle
Customer
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Irmagarde Griswold
Heaven Can Wait
Mrs. Edna Craig (uncredited)
I Remember Mama
Florence Dana Moorhead
The Tall Target
Mrs. Charlotte Alsop
Kismet
Karsha
The Devil and Miss Jones
Store Shopper
Filmography — Acting
Rebecca
Edythe Van Hopper
On the Town
Madame Dilyovska
The Girl from Jones Beach
Miss Emma Shoemaker
Kitty Foyle
Customer
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Irmagarde Griswold
Heaven Can Wait
Mrs. Edna Craig (uncredited)
I Remember Mama
Florence Dana Moorhead
The Tall Target
Mrs. Charlotte Alsop
Kismet
Karsha
The Devil and Miss Jones
Store Shopper
Mr. Lucky
Mrs. Van Every
My Dear Secretary
Horrible Hannah Reeve (the landlady)
Love Crazy
Mrs. Cooper
Winter Meeting
Mrs. Castle
The Diary of a Chambermaid
Rose
The Son of Monte Cristo
Countess Mathilde Von Braun
The Man I Love
Mrs. Thorpe (uncredited)
Cluny Brown
Dowager at Ames's Party
A Letter to Three Wives
Mrs. Manleigh
Portrait of Jennie
Mrs. Jekes
Hudson's Bay
Duchess (scenes deleted)
The Mask of Dimitrios
Madame Elise Chavez
San Antonio
Henrietta
River Lady
Ma Dunnegan
Les Miserables
Madame Bonnet
Lullaby of Broadway
Mrs. Anna Hubbell
Mexican Spitfire at Sea
Mrs. Baldwin
The Brasher Doubloon
Mrs. Murdock
Belle of the Yukon
Viola Chase
Saratoga Trunk
Sophie Bellop
The Inside Story
Geraldine Atherton
Paris Model
Nora Sullivan
Main Street to Broadway
Mrs. Bessmer in Fantasy Sequence
Road Show
Mrs. Newton
Texas, Brooklyn & Heaven
Mandy
Slightly Dangerous
Mrs. Amanda Roanoke-Brooke
The San Francisco Story
Sadie
Strange Alibi
Katie
The Moon and Sixpence
Tiare Johnson
The Second Woman
Amelia Foster
The Time, The Place and The Girl
Mme. Lucia Cassel
The Chocolate Soldier
Madame Helene
We Were Dancing
Mrs. Elsa Vanderlip
Whistle Stop
Molly Veech
They Got Me Covered
Gypsy Woman
The Judge Steps Out
Chita
Tonight and Every Night
May Tolliver
Love and Learn
Mrs. Bella Davis - Landlady
County Fair
Nora 'Ma' Ryan
The Tuttles of Tahiti
Emily
Tahiti Nights
Queen Liliha
Claudia and David
Nancy Riddle
My Heart Belongs to Daddy
Mrs. Saunders
Havana Rose
Mrs. Fillmore
Mister Big
Mrs. Mary Davis
His Butler's Sister
Lady Sloughberry
Father Takes the Air
Minerva Bobbin
Calling All Husbands
Emmie Trippe
Out of This World
Harriet Pringle
Belle of Old Mexico
Nellie Chatfield