Kathy Bates

**Kathleen Doyle "Kathy" Bates** is an award-winning American actor of stage, film, and television. Bates first rose to prominence with her performance in the 1990 horror film *Misery*, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her television work has resulted in fourteen Emmy Award nominations, two of which were for her starring role on the television series *Harry's Law* and most recently, a win for her highly praised appearance in the third season of FX horror-thriller series *American Horror Story*.

She is recurring in the first season of *Feud* as Joan Blondell.

## Early Life

Bates was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the youngest of three daughters of Bertye Kathleen (née Talbert; 1907–97), a homemaker, and Langdon Doyle Bates (1900–89), a mechanical engineer. Her paternal grandfather was lawyer and author Finis L. Bates. One of her great-great-grandfathers, who from Ireland to New Orleans, Louisiana, served as President Andrew Jackson's doctor. She graduated from White Station High School and from Southern Methodist University (1969), where she majored in Theatre and became a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority. She moved to New York City in 1970 to pursue an acting career.

## Career

Bates' history of Broadway appearances includes Lanford Wilson's *Fifth of July* and the Robert Altman-directed *Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean* with Karen Black and Cher. Bates originated the role of Lenny in the first production of *Crimes of the Heart* at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in 1979. She was nominated for a Tony Award in 1983 for her stage role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play *'night* with Anne Pitoniak. The stage production ran for more than a year. One of her other successful New York stage productions was, Off Broadway, in Terrence McNally's *Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune* which ran 533 performances and for which she won an Obie Award for Best Actress in 1988. McNally specifically wrote the play for Bates and F. Murray Abraham, who had to drop out and was replaced by Kenneth Welsh. The play was later filmed as *Frankie and Johnny*, starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer. She succeeded Amy Irving in the Off-Broadway production of *The Road to Mecca* in 1988.

Bates' first feature film role was in the 1971 Miloš Forman comedy *Taking Off* (credited as "Bobo Bates"), in which she sings an original song "Even Horses Had Wings". Bates' next feature was the Dustin Hoffman film *Straight Time* (1978). In 1977, Bates made her Soap opera debut as Phyllis on NBC's soap opera *The Doctors*. From 1983 to 1984, she played prison inmate Belle Bodelle on *All My Children* and from 1984 to 1985, she played Evelyn Maddox on *One Life to Live*. In 1990 she would appear again with Hoffman in Warren Beatty's *Dick Tracy* as a stenographer. She appeared in films like *The Morning After* and *Summer Heat*, while guest-starring on television's *L.A. Law*. She then landed the role of obsessed fan Annie Wilkes, who holds her favorite author (played by James Caan) captive, in the 1990 thriller film *Misery*, based on the Stephen King novel. Bates received her first Academy Award nomination for that role, winning Best Actress.

Soon after, she starred with Jessica Tandy in the acclaimed 1991 movie *Fried Green Tomatoes*, based on the novel by comedic actress Fannie Flagg. In 1995 Bates played the title character in *Dolores Claiborne*, a film adaptation of another Stephen King novel, although she was not nominated for an Oscar. In 1997 Bates played Molly Brown in James Cameron's *Titanic*. Based on the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, the film went on to earn more than $1.8 billion in box-office receipts worldwide.

Bates also excelled in her role as the acid-tongued "dustbuster" political advisor Libby Holden in the 1998 drama film *Primary Colors*, which was adapted from the book in which political journalist Joe Klein novelized his experiences on the Presidential campaign trail in 1991–1992. For this performance, she received her second Academy Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actress. In 2002 she received her third nomination, for *About Schmidt*. More recently, she and Terry Bradshaw played the parents of Matthew McConaughey's character in the 2006 film *Failure to Launch*. Bates was featured in an uncredited cameo in the miniseries of Stephen King's *The Stand*.

Bates has been nominated for an Emmy Award twelve times, winning two. She was first nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie, for her performance as Jay Leno's manager Helen Kushnick in HBO's *The Late Shift* (1996), and has been nominated in the same category as Miss Hannigan in Disney's remake of *Annie* (1999), and for the HBO Franklin Roosevelt biopic *Warm Springs* (2005). She was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for Lifetime Television's *Ambulance Girl* (2006), which she also directed, and received a Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie nomination for *Alice*.

She appeared in ten episodes of the HBO cable television series *Six Feet Under* for which she received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series, as Bettina, in 2003. She was also nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for *3rd Rock from the Sun* in 1999, the same year that she was nominated for Outstanding Directing in a Miniseries or Movie for the Dashiell Hammett-Lillian Hellman biopic *Dash & Lilly*. She also had a recurring guest role on the American version of *The Office* as Jo Bennett.

Starting in the 1990s, Bates forged a formidable career as a director. She has directed episodes of *Homicide: Life on the Street*, *NYPD Blue*, *Oz*, *Six Feet Under* and *Everwood*. Bates directed the television movies *Dash and Lilly* and the self-starring *Ambulance Girl*. She directed and co-starred in *Have Mercy* (2006) with Melanie Griffith. In 2008, she re-teamed with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in *Revolutionary Road*. She starred in David E. Kelley's legal drama *Harry's Law*, which began airing on NBC on January 17, 2011, but was cancelled on May 14, 2012.

In 2012 Bates made a guest appearance on *Two and a Half Men* as the ghost of Charlie Harper on the episode, "Why We Gave Up Women", which aired on April 30, 2012. In the episode, Charlie has returned as a ghost to haunt his brother, Alan (Jon Cryer). He tells Alan that after a life of womanizing and debauchery, he was sent to hell and condemned to spend eternity in a woman's body. This guest appearance resulted in Bates winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. It was Bates' first Emmy win after nine nominations.

In 2013 she began starring in the *American Horror Story* series' third season, *Coven* as Delphine LaLaurie, an immortal racist who is brought back into the modern world after spending years buried alive. For that role, she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie. Bates returned in its fourth season *Freak Show* as Ethel Darling, a bearded Lady who performs in the freak show the season is centered on. It premiered on October 7, 2015, and concluded on January 13, 2016. On September 14, 2016, Bates returned for her fourth, and the show's sixth season, *Roanoke*, playing both Thomasin "The Butcher" White, and White's reenactress, Agnes Mary Winstead.

In June 2016, the Human Rights Campaign released a video in tribute to the victims of the 2016 Orlando gay nightclub shooting; in the video, Bates and others told the stories of the people killed there.

Bates is the Executive Committee Chair of the Actors Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Board of Governors. In 2014, Bates became a national spokesperson for lymphedema and Chairperson for the Lymphatic Education & Research Network's Honorary Board.

On September 20, 2016, Bates received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her work in the motion pictures industry, located at 6927 Hollywood Boulevard.

## Personal Life

Bates has successfully battled ovarian cancer since her diagnosis in 2003. In September 2012, she revealed via Twitter that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer two months earlier and had undergone a double mastectomy. In 2014, at the New York Walk for Lymphedema & Lymphatic Diseases, Bates announced via pre-recorded audio that, due to the double mastectomy, she has lymphedema in both arms. At that time, Bates became the National Spokesperson for the Lymphatic Education & Research Network (LE&RN) and has been actively involved in lymphedema and lymphatic disease advocacy.

She was married to Tony Campisi for six years from 1991 to 1997.

## Trivia

* Her favorite film role is Dolores Claiborne.
* She was the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Actress in a horror/thriller for her role as Annie Wilkes in the 1990-film *Misery*.

## External Links

* Official Website
* Kathy Bates on Wikipedia
* Kathy Bates at the Internet Movie Database
* Kathy Bates on Twitter