Kathy Bates

Kathleen Doyle "Kathy" Bates (born June 28, 1948) is an American actress. Bates began her career on the stage, and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play in 1983 for her performance in 'night, Mother. She rose to prominence with her performance in Misery (1990), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. She followed this with major roles in Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) and Dolores Claiborne (1995), before playing a featured role as Molly Brown in Titanic (1997), which was at the time the highest grossing film of all time. Bates' television work has resulted in 14 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, where she portrayed the real life socialite Madame Marie Delphine LaLaurie. She won another Emmy Award in 2012 for her portrayal as the ghost of Charlie Harper on CBS comedy series Two and a Half Men, a role formerly portrayed by Charlie Sheen. 2Early life Bates was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the youngest of three daughters of homemaker Bertye Kathleen (née Talbert; 1907–1997) and mechanical engineer Langdon Doyle Bates (1900–1989). Her paternal grandfather was lawyer and author Finis L. Bates. One of her Irish great-great-grandfathers, who immigrated to New Orleans, Louisiana, served as President Andrew Jackson's doctor. She graduated early from White Station High School (1965) and from Southern Methodist University (1969), where she majored in Theatre and became a member of the Alpha Delta Pi sororit