Florence Bates!

A page I recently discovered on this very funny, sometimes heartwarming character actress. Whether hideous society matron ("Rebecca"), domineering wife ("Lullaby of Broadway"), mother from hell ("Love Crazy") or loving aunt ("The Second Woman"), she was always fascinating. A really funny film with her in a major supporting role, now in the public domain, "Texas, Brooklyn & Heaven" has her as a con-artist getting a group of spinsters to ride on bucking bull machines with Margaret Hamilton and Irene Ryan as two of the sisters. I believe the woman in the picture is her granddaughter. Florence comes off as a very lovely woman in real life, like she was winking at the audience in playing some of those horrible females. She was also very much in love with her husband, devoted to him, and basically just went through the stages of living while grieving over him, passing away a few years later. Not all love stories are about the pretty people.

Thanks, R1. I just saw a picture of her in that film Texas, Brooklyn & Heaven - I never heard of it. It sounds hilarious. I thought she was particularly funny playing the gypsy with Bob Hope in They Got Me Covered, also. And in On The Town, as the dance instructor who liked to drink, Madame Dilyovska, or however it was spelled.

You are very welcome, R2. The dance instructor in "On the Town" is a very showy supporting role that won Mary Testa a Tony nomination for the 1996 revival and got a lot of laughs for "Do do re do..." Jackie Hoffman in the outstanding recent revival. Florence is also very funny in "The Tuttles of Tahiti" where she takes on Charles Laughton. She practically steals "Saratoga Trunk" from leads Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman, and I think she deserved the Oscar nomination for that film over the very weird performance by Flora Robson.

Everyone is more familiar with her brother Master.

I just finished watching Rebecca on YouTube. Bates is great as Mrs. Van Hopper , the repellent society matron with her nasty putdowns of the young girl played by Joan Fontane.

Florence Bates and Judith Anderson didn't cross paths in "Rebecca", but they were next door neighbors in a very campy melodrama, "The Diary of a Chambermaid" (1946), starring Paulette Goddard and Burgess Meredith, also featuring Irene Ryan as the very nervous scullery maid.

Loved her in "I Remember Mama" as the food expert. Mama (Irene Dunne) shares her secret recipe.

Now THERE is an enviable career!!!!!

I remember her as Mrs Pettebone, society matron come to inspect the Ricardos and the Mertzes in the popular I Love Lucy episode Pioneer Women.

In this day and age can someone do what Florence bates did and pursue an acting career at a middle/later stage in life and have success. I know Kathryn joosten, Anne Haney, Judith Lowry and Estelle Getty were able to do it, but there’s so much nepotism and knowing the right people now.

My favorite performance is probably in A Letter To Three Wives, as the pretentious Mrs. Manleigh, sponsor of the radio program written by Ann Sothern's character. The characters talk about Sadie (Thelma Ritter) listening to radio programs and how the sponsors' ads are reaching her.

Mr. Manleigh: Sadie may not realize it, but whether or not she thinks she's listening, she's being penetrated.

George Phipps: Good thing she didn't hear you say that.

R10 It's true in those days there was a lot of scouting and she was in plays at the Pasadena playhouse. According to what I've read, meeting Alfred Hitchcock led to being cast in Rebecca, but I don't know how she met him.

“That medicine taste terrible! Quick, get me a chocolate!”

The cigarette in the cold cream.

(Sneering). “Mrs. DeWinter!”

"Heaven Can Wait" (1943): Florence in hell catching the elevator further down when she shows Don Ameche her legs and devil Laird Cregar rolls his eyes and pulls the lever. The only thing wrong was Florence not appearing in a flashback on earth as it was intimated that she knew Ameche in life.

R11, this is one of those sterling examples of how clever the writing could be in those days. Of course, her name is a play on "manly," with a meek husband and the constant referral to time and money. "Crackerjack point!" is a phrase I use all the time and no one has ever called me on the reference.

These days, if you named a bossy woman Mrs. Manleigh there would be some character saying, "Well they got that right!" to cue the audience to laugh. Writers can't trust viewers any more.