Kathy Bates Her 5 Most Memorable Roles

Bates just oozes bile in her portrayal of Annie Wilkes, a demented nurse. In remote, snowbound Colorado, Annie manages to imprison her favorite author, Paul Sheldon (played by James Caan) and torture him after she finds out that hes killed off Misery Chastain, her favorite fictional character in his books. To appease her, Sheldon pretends that Misery will live, and Annie shrieks: "Misery is alive! Misery is alive! Im going to put on my Liberace records!" Thats a darkly comic moment, but ultimately there are a lot more shivers than laughs in Batess portrayal of a woman who has lost all sense of reality. Its no wonder she got an Academy Award for Best Actress.

Batess character, a submissive, menopausal Southern housewife, badly needs to stand up for herself instead of eating doughnuts by the dozen and (resentfully) doing everything her husband wants her to. Eventually, she learns to do that, thanks to the inspiring stories told her by an elderly nursing-home resident (Jessica Tandy). By the time shes heard all the stories, Batess wimpy character (like most of the characters the actress plays) has become a woman who knows what she wants and that its OK to be angry, really angry. She deliberately rear-ends a car whose passengers have said to her, "Were younger and faster." Bates looks at them and coolly replies, "Face it, girls. Im older and I have more insurance."

As Molly Brown, a rich American woman, Bates is an astringent presence amid all the pomp and circumstance aboard the Titanic. "Why do they have to announce dinner like a damn cavalry change," she snaps. And when the ship goes down, you just know shes found herself a comfortable place on one of the lifeboats. (The real-life Molly Brown, also known as the unsinkable Molly Brown, actually did survive the sinking of the Titanic.)

Just because youre tough doesnt mean youre invulnerable. In the political thriller Primary Colors, Bates plays Libby Holden, a hardened but mentally fragile political operative who works for the smooth-talking, Bill Clinton-like Presidential candidate Jack Stanton (John Travolta). Known as the "dust-buster", Libby is great at digging up dirt on political rivals. But when the Stanton campaign goes too far even for her, she goes over the edge and commits suicide. When the film was released, critic Roger Ebert said that Batess performance was "Oscar caliber."