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