Oscar Profile #321: Florence Bates

Born April 15, 1888 to Jewish immigrants in Austin, Texas, Florence Rabe was the second of two children. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Mathematics in 1906, after which she taught school. She gave up her career in 1909 when she married her first husband and gave birth to her only daughter. When the marriage ended, she studied law, passing the bar exam in 1914 and becoming the first female lawyer in the State of Texas.

After the death of her parents, Rabe left the legal profession to help her sister operate their father’s antiques business. She also became a bilingual (English-Spanish) radio commentator whose program was designed to foster good relations between the United States and Mexico. In 1929, following the stock market crash and the death of her sister, she closed the antiques shop and married wealthy businessman Will Jacoby. When he lost his fortune, the couple moved to Los Angeles and opened a bakery, which proved a successful venture until they sold it in the 1940s.

In 1937, Rabe took the role of Miss Bates in a Pasadena Playhouse production of Emma. She was an immediate hit and changed her professional name to Bates after the character. Two years later she was introduced to Alfred Hitchcock who cast her as Joan Fontaine’s employer, the vain Mrs. Van Hopper in Rebecca.

Although Bates was a standout in all her films, her roles were never quite substantial enough to achieve major awards recognition. Had there been an acting category for ensembles in films in her day, she surely would have been part of those nominations on numerous occasions.

Some of Bates’ most memorable screen performances were in 1942’s The Moon and Sixpence, 1943’s Heaven Can Wait, 1945’s Tonight and Every Night and Saratoga Trunk, 1947’s The Brasher Doubloon and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, 1948’s I Remember Mama, Texas, Brooklyn and Heaven and Portrait of Jennie, 1949’s A Letter to Three Wives and On the Town and 1951’s Lullaby of Broadway.

Bates had guest appearances on all the major TV comedy series beginning in 1951. Among her appearances were those on The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, I Love Lucy, Our Miss Brooks, My Little Margie, Private Secretary and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. She also made her fair share of appearances in dramatic roles on TV. Her last was in a December, 1956 episode of Ethel Barrymore Theater which first aired nearly three years after her death on January 31, 1954.

Florence Bates died of a heart attack at the age of 65, two years after the death of her husband. She also survived her only daughter. Happily, however, great-granddaughter Rachel Hamilton carries on the acting tradition both in film and on TV.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

REBECCA, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1940)

Bates was close to 50 when she made her acting debut on stage at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1937. Although she had an uncredited role in that same year’s The Man in Blue, she officially made her debut in Hitchcock’s Oscar-winning film of Daphne du Maurier’s best-seller. She met Hitchcock in 1939 whereupon he immediately gave her the role of the vain Mrs. Van Hopper, Joan Fontaine’s employer at the beginning of the film. Although her role is short, she received ninth billing, just behind Laurence Olivier, Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson, Nigel Bruce, Reginald Denny, C. Aubrey Smith and Gladys Cooper.

HEAVEN CAN WAIT, directed by Ernst Lubitsch (1943)

Lubitsch’s film, based on the play Birthday, is about the life of an old roué played by Don Ameche, told in flashback as he is interviewed by the devil in Hell’s waiting room, amusingly played by Laird Cregar. The film’s narrative revolves around Ameche, Gene Tierney, Charles Coburn, Marjorie Main, Spring Byington, Eugene Pallette, Signe Hasso and others and has nothing to do with Bates, whose role can best be described as a cameo. She is seen at the beginning of the film as the tiresome woman Cregar consigns to Hell with the flip of a switch. It is easily the funniest sequence in the entire film.

TONIGHT AND EVERY NIGHT, directed by Victor Saville (1945)

Sixty years before Mrs. Henderson Presents, Hollywood told the same story about the London nightclub that never closed during World War II, not even during the blitz. Featuring a strong cast with Rita Hayworth, Lee Bowman, Janet Blair, Marc Platt and Bates as a fictionalized version of the character later played by Judi Dench, the film has everything the latter one does except the nudity. The verbal sparring between Platt (later one the brothers in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) is one of the film’s many delights. Hayworth and Blair are superb and the scenes of the blitz are also quite impressive.

I REMEMBER MAMA, directed by George Stevens (1948)

Although many of her roles were of the unctuous variety, Bates could pour on the charm when needed. She has one of her most charming roles as the famous author that Irene Dunne goes to for advice for her daughter, Barbara Bel Geddes. It’s a small role, but Bates makes it memorable with her comic reaction to her picture in the newspaper. Anyone who remembers the film fondly, remembers her along with Dunne’s beloved mother, Bel Geddes’ aspiring author, Philip Dorn’s gentle father, Oscar Homolka’s family patriarch, Barbara O’Neil’s “housekeeper”, Ellen Corby’s timid aunt, Edgar Bergen’s suitor and Sir Cedric Hardwicke’s border.

LULLABY OF BROADWAY, directed by David Butler (1970)

This under-rated musical plays like Frank Capra’s Lady for a Day in reverse. that 1933 classic is told from the point of view the boozy old lady who cleans up her act for daughter Jean Parker’s visit. This one is told from the perspective of the daughter (Doris Day) who is looking for the mother (Gladys George) she believed to be a great Broadway star, but who is really a burnt-out alcoholic cabaret performer. S.Z. Sakall is the Broadway producer whose home George uses to try and fool her daughter. Bates is Sakall’s jealous wife who believes he is having an affair with George who sings “Please Don’t Talk About Me When I’m Gone”.