Bates, Kathy (1948- )

US actor and director. An Academy Award-winning performer, Bates is a skilful character actor equally adept at drama, as in her chilling performance as psychopath Annie Wilkes in Misery (1990), and comedy, as in her role as the acid-tongued confidante to John Travolta's presidential candidate in Primary Colors (1998). Having worked in minor film and television roles since the 1970s, it was the Misery role that kick-started Bates's career, leading to better roles and greater exposure in such films as Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (1991), Dolores Claiborne (1995), and the record-breaking blockbuster, Titanic (1997).

In the 1990s, Bates branched out into directing, shooting episodes of the hit television shows NYPD Blue and Homicide: Life on the Street, as well as the television film, Dash and Lilly (1999), about the relationship between US crime writer Dashiell Hammett and the US dramatist Lillian Hellman. Her acting filmography also includes roles in Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982), At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991), The Waterboy (1998), and The Cider House Rules (1999). In 2001 she starred in American Outlaws and Rat Race.

Bates graduated from the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, with a degree in theatre studies. She is an accomplished singer and songwriter and also owns an audiobooks company.