KATHY BATES Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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KATHY BATES

Name: Kathleen Doyle Bates                                                               
Born: 28 June 1948 Memphis, Tennessee U.S.                                               
                                                                                         
Kathleen Doyle Bates (born June 28, 1948) is an Academy Award-winning American           
theatrical, film and television actress, and a stage and television director.             
                                                                                         
Bates was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the daughter of Bertye Kathleen (née               
Talbot), a homemaker, and Langdon Doyle Bates, a mechanical engineer. Her                 
great-great-grandfather was an immigrant from Ireland to New Orleans and served           
as President Andrew Jackson's doctor. She has two older sisters, Mary and                 
Patricia. Bates graduated from White Station High School in Memphis. She                 
attended Southern Methodist University, majoring in theatre and was a member of           
Alpha Delta Pi sorority, and graduated in 1969. She moved to New York City in             
1970 to pursue an acting career.                                                         
                                                                                         
One of her first films was the Dustin Hoffman film Straight Time. In 1990, she           
would appear again with Hoffman in Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy as a stenographer           
who couldn't understand the mumbling of Hoffman's character, Mumbles. Bates               
appeared off-Broadway in Terrence McNally's 1987 play Frankie and Johnny in the           
Claire de Lune, performed in little-seen films such as Summer Heat and The               
Morning After, and guest-starred in television shows such as L.A. Law before             
landing the role of obsessed fan Annie Wilkes, who holds her favorite author (played     
by James Caan) captive, in the 1990 thriller Misery, which was based on the               
novel of the same name by Stephen King. She 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. In 1995, she             
turned in another applauded portrayal as the title character in Dolores                   
Claiborne, although she was surprisingly not nominated for an Oscar. She also             
excelled in her role as the acid-tongued "dustbuster" political advisor Libby             
Holden in the 1998 Primary Colors, which was adapted from the book in which               
political journalist Joe Klein recounted his experiences on the Presidential             
campaign trail in 1991-1992. For this performance, she received her second               
Academy Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actress, though she did not win.           
She was nominated again, in 2002, for About Schmidt, though again, she was               
denied the award. Bates did her first nude scene at the age of 43 in the 1991             
film, At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991) and again for a scene in 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 nominated for the Emmy Award seven times: 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, twice again 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. 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 also           
was 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.                                                                                   
                                                                                         
Her Broadway appearances include Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July and the Robert           
Altman-directed Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean opposite           
Karen Black and Cher. She received a Tony Award nomination in 1983 for her stage         
role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning play 'night, Mother opposite Anne Pitoniak.           
The production of 'night, Mother ran over 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. 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.                                                 
                                                                                         
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 has also directed the TV movies Dash and Lilly and the self-starring 
Ambulance Girl. In 2007, Bates will direct and also star in Have Mercy opposite           
Melanie Griffith.That same year, she re-teamed with her Titanic co-stars                 
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road, based on Richard Yates's       
critically acclaimed novel. It is scheduled for a 2008 release.