Kathy Bates



Jump to: Overview (4) |  Mini Bio (1) |  Spouse (1) |  Trade Mark (2) |  Trivia (28) |  Personal Quotes (6)====Overview (4)====

Mini Bio (1)
Multi-talented Kathleen Doyle Bates was born on June 28, 1948, and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. The youngest of three girls, her father was Langdon Doyle Bates, a mechanical engineer, and her mother, Bertye Kathleen (Talbot), a homemaker. Kathy has English, as well as Irish, Scottish, and German, ancestry, and one of her ancestors, an Irish emigrant to New Orleans, once served as President Andrew Jackson's doctor. Kathy discovered acting appearing in high school plays and studied drama at Southern Methodist University, graduating in 1969. With her mind firmly set, she moved to New York City in 1970 and paid her dues by working everything from a cash register to taking lunch orders. Things started moving quickly up the ladder after giving a tour-de-force performance alongside Christopher Walken at Buffalo's Studio Arena Theatre in Lanford Wilson's world premiere of "Lemon Sky" in 1970, but she also had a foreshadowing of the heartbreak to come after the successful show relocated to New York's off-Broadway Playhouse Theatre without her and Walken wound up winning a Drama Desk award. By the mid-to-late 1970s, Kathy was treading the boards frequently as a rising young actress of the New York and regional theater scene. She appeared in "Casserole" and "A Quality of Mercy" (both 1975) before earning exceptional reviews for her role of Joanne in "Vanities". She took her first Broadway curtain call in 1980's "Goodbye Fidel," which lasted only six performances. She then went directly into replacement mode when she joined the cast of the already-established and highly successful "Fifth of July" in 1981. Kathy made a false start in films with Taking Off (1971), in which she was billed as "Bobo Bates". She didn't film again until Straight Time (1978), starring Dustin Hoffman, and that part was not substantial enough to cause a stir. Things turned hopeful, however, when Kathy and the rest of the female ensemble were given the chance to play their respective Broadway parts in the film version of Robert Altman's Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982). It was a juicy role for Kathy and film audiences finally started noticing the now 34-year-old. Still and all, it was the New York stage that continued to earn Kathy awards and acclaim. She was pure textbook to any actor studying how to disappear into a role. Her characters ranged from free and life-affirming to downright pitiable. Despite winning a Tony Award nomination and Outer Critic's Circle Award for her stark, touchingly sad portrait of a suicidal daughter in 1983's "'night, Mother" and the Obie and Los Angeles Drama Critics Award for her powerhouse job as a romantic misfit in "Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune," Kathy had no box-office pull and was hardly a strong consideration when the roles finally went to film. Kathy Bates was forever losing out when her award-winning stage characters transferred to the screen. First Sissy Spacek took on her potent role as the suicidal Jessie Cates in 'night, Mother (1986), then Michelle Pfeiffer seized the moment to play her dumpy lover character in Frankie & Johnny (1991). It would take Oscar glory to finally rectify the injustice. It was her fanatical turn as the drab, chunky, porcine-looking psychopath Annie Wilkes, who kidnaps her favorite author ( James Caan) and subjects him to a series of horrific tortures, that finally turned the tide for her in Hollywood. With the 1990 shocker Misery(1990), based on the popular Stephen King novel, Bates and Caan were pure box office magic. Moreover, Kathy captured the "Best Actress" Oscar and Golden Globe award, a first in that genre (horror) for that category. To add to her happiness she married Tony Campisi, also an actor, in 1991. Quality film scripts now started coming her way and the 1990s proved to be a rich and rewarding time for her. First, she and another older "overnight" film star, fellow Oscar winner Jessica Tandy, starred together in the modern portion of the beautifully nuanced, flashback period piece Fried Green Tomatoes (1991). She then outdid herself as the detached and depressed housekeeper accused of murdering her abusive husband (David Strathairn) in Dolores Claiborne (1995). Surprisingly, she was left out of the Oscar race for these two excellent performances. Not so, however, for her flashy political advisor Libby Holden in the movie Primary Colors (1998) and her quirky, liberal mom in Σχετικά με τον Σμιντ (2002), receiving "Best Supporting Actress" nominations for both. She also turned in a somewhat brief but potent turn as Gertrude Stein in Woody Allen'sΜεσάνυχτα στο Παρίσι (2011). Kathy has continued to work prolifically on TV as a multiple Emmy winner and nominee. She has also taken to directing a couple of TV-movies on the sly. She was nominated for a DGA award after helming an episode of "Six Feet Under," in which she also had a recurring role. While some of her more recent movie parts have been unworthy of her talents, she has more than made up for it on TV playing everything from cruel-minded caricatures (Little Orphan Annie's Miss Hannigan) to common, decent every day folk in mini-movies. More recently she has done some eye-catching, offbeat turns on regular series such as The Office (2005), Harry's Law (2011) and especially American Horror Story (2011) for which she won an Emmy as Ethel Darling. Divorced from her husband since 1997, Kathy has been the Executive Committee Chair of the Actors Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Board of Governors. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

Trade Mark (2)
Often portrays kind-hearted or cold-hearted charactersCharacters who are frequently tough-talking and outspoken====Trivia (28)==== Born at 11:12am-CDT.

should be CST.Her two older sisters appeared briefly in Primary Colors (1998).Graduated from White Station High in Memphis, Tennessee, USA.Did her first ever nude scene at the age of 43 in At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991). She disrobed again for Σχετικά με τον Σμιντ (2002).Lived with ex-husband Tony Campisi for 12 years before marrying him.Youngest of 3 sisters. Sisters: Patricia and Mary.Father, Langdon Doyle Bates, was a mechanical engineer. Mother Bertye Kathleen Bates died in 1997.Graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, USA in 1969 with an BFA in Theater.Her Oscar-winning role as Annie Wilkes in Misery (1990) was ranked #17 on the American Film Institute's villains list of the 100 years of The Greatest Screen Heroes and Villians.Was nominated for Broadway's 1983 Tony Award as Best Actress (Play) for "'night, Mother."Playwright Terrence McNally originally wrote the role of Frankie in "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune" for Bates. Johnny was played by Kenneth Welsh in the 1987 Off-Broadway production that starred Bates.Member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Actors Branch) [1998-2007].Auditioned for TV series Three's Company (1977) for role that ultimately went to Joyce DeWitt. Bates says she was relieved she didn't get the part because, after auditioning, she felt she really didn't want it.Her performance as Annie Wilkes in Misery (1990) is ranked #77 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.Mother: Bertye Kathleen Bates. She died in 1997.Often mistaken for comedienne Roseanne Barr, who in turn has spoofed Bates' "Annie Wilkes" role in Misery (1990) in a Saturday Night Live (1975) sketch.She is an artist and writer and hopes to someday write and illustrate her own children's book. She has spoken at award ceremonies for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.In 2005, she and the rest of the chief creative team behind the "American Experience" documentary "Tupperware!" which aired on PBS were awarded the (George Foster) Peabody Award for excellence in electronic (i.e. television and radio) media. It was the 64th presentation of the internationally-renowned prize.She is a close friend of Adam Sandler, Jack Nicholson, Elizabeth Perkins, John Travolta,Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet and Oprah Winfrey.Donated $1 million to Hurricane Katrina victims.With her role, The Family That Preys (2008) she was the first white actress to have a lead in a Tyler Perry movie.Has said Dolores Claiborne (1995) is her favorite film role.Warren Beatty originally offered her a small role in his film Οι Κόκκινοι (1981), however she was unable to obtain an international visa for her to film her role overseas. He kept contact with her and gave the role of a stenographer to Bates in his follow up Dick Tracy (1990).She was the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Actress in a horror/thriller for her role in Misery (1990).Bates' grandfather, Memphis attorney Finis Langdon Bates, wrote the book "The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth" in 1907. It is said to be Bates' non-fiction account of hearing a deathbed confession from a man who claimed to be Abraham Lincoln's assassin, Booth, who had escaped capture and lived under another name out west. (source: pbs.org).Bates was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2003, but she did not reveal her illness to the general public until 2009. She stated that she has been "in total remission" for over five and a half years, as of January 2009. In September 2012, Bates announced via Twitter that she has breast cancer and is recovering from a double mastectomy.Is one of 3 actresses to have won the Best Actress Academy Award for their portrayal of a character named "Annie". The others are Anne Bancroft (for The Miracle Worker(1962)) and Diane Keaton (for Νευρικός εραστής (1977)).Was the 102nd actress to receive an Academy Award; she won the Best Actress Oscar for Misery (1990) at The 63rd Annual Academy Awards (1991) on March 25, 1991.====Personal Quotes (6)==== The Oscar changed everything. Better salary, working with better people, better projects, more exposure, less privacy.[on losing the role of Frankie, which had been written for her by playwright Terrence McNally, to Michelle Pfeiffer in the movie version of "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune"] "I thought it was wonderful to see a love story about people over forty, ordinary people who were trying to connect. We haven't seen it before, and I don't think we will see it with this movie Frankie & Johnny (1991).""When I was told Terry Bradshaw would be playing my husband, I was like 'The star-quarterback Terry Bradshaw?'." [on playing Terry Bradshaw's movie wife in Failure to Launch (2006)].I was never an ingénue. I've always just been a character actor. When I was younger, it was a real problem, because I was never pretty enough. It was hard, not just for the lack of work, but because you have to face up to how people are looking at you.My mother used to tell this corny story about how the doctor smacked me on the behind when I was born and I thought it was applause, and I have been looking for it ever since. [Excerpt from her 1991 Academy Award acceptance speech] I'd like to thank Jimmy Caan, and apologize publicly for the ankles.