---
name: "Florence Bates"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/florence-bates"
roles: ["Actor"]
born: "13 April 1888"
died: "31 January 1954"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
updated: "2026-09-16T21:13:26.623037+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Florence Bates

Actor. Born 13 April 1888 in San Antonio, Texas, USA. Died 31 January 1954.

## Details

- **Work:** Actor
- **Born:** 13 April 1888, San Antonio, Texas, USA
- **Died:** 31 January 1954
- **Also known as:** Florence Rabe

## Biography

Florence Bates, also credited as Florence Rabe, was an American character actress. Born in San Antonio, Texas, she graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in mathematics and later became one of the first female lawyers in Texas. After working in radio and running a bakery in Los Angeles with her husband, she began acting in the mid-1930s at the Pasadena Playhouse, adopting her professional name from her first stage role.

Bates made her screen debut in Alfred Hitchcock's *Rebecca* (1940) as Edythe Van Hopper. She appeared in more than sixty films over the following thirteen years, including *The Devil and Miss Jones* (1941), *Heaven Can Wait* (1943), *The Secret Life of Walter Mitty* (1947), *I Remember Mama* (1948), *A Letter to Three Wives* (1949) and *On the Town* (1949). She also had television roles, including a guest appearance on *I Love Lucy* (1951). She died on 31 January 1954.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Rebecca* (1940), Fi1m 85, as Edythe Van Hopper — [page](https://film.one/film/rebecca.md)

## Also known for

- *On the Town* (1949), Madame Dilyovska
- *I Love Lucy* (1951), Mrs. Pettebone
- *Heaven Can Wait* (1943), Mrs. Edna Craig (uncredited)
- *A Letter to Three Wives* (1949), Mrs. Manleigh
- *The Secret Life of Walter Mitty* (1947), Mrs. Griswold
- *Portrait of Jennie* (1948), Mrs. Jekes
- *Cluny Brown* (1946), Dowager at Ames's Party
- *I Remember Mama* (1948), Florence Dana Moorhead

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/florence-bates