In Remembrance: Jeanne Bates

     Jeanne Bates, the actress who portrayed the mother in David Lynch’s surreal debut feature film Eraserhead (1977), has passed away on November 28, 2007 in Woodland Hills, CA. She was 89.

     Born May 21, 1918 in Berkeley, CA, Bates got her start in acting by appearing on radio soap operas in San Francisco while still enrolled at San Mateo Junior College. She also played the lead on the mystery series Whodunit, for which she also supplied the show’s signature scream. The show, and Bates with it, moved to Los Angeles in 1941. Bates would marry Whodunit’s writer Lew X. Lansworth in 1943.

     Bates landed a contract with Columbia Pictures, with her first film, The Chance Of A Lifetime, part of the studios Boston Blackie b-movie series, hitting screens in October of 1943. In her two years at Columbia, Bates was often cast as the female lead in various b-movies. She also starred as love interest Diana Palmer opposite Tom Tyler in Columbia’s 1943 15-chapter serial The Phantom, based on Lee Falk’s adventure comic strip.

     Although Bates had a small role in Death Of A Salesman, the 1951 film adaptation of Arthur Miller’s classic play, she would work almost exclusively in television for the rest of her career.

     What little film work she did receive was confined to small roles in films such as the western Blood Arrow (1958), The Strangler (1964), Suppose They Gave A War And Nobody Came? (1970), Die Hard 2 (1990) and Grand Canyon (1991).

     Bates reteamed with Lynch for her last film appearance, 2001’s Mulholland Dr.