Granville Bates

Granville Bates (January 7, 1882 – July 8, 1940) was an American character actor and bit player, appearing in over ninety films.

Granville Bates
Bates in the trailer for My Favorite Wife, 1940
Born(1882-01-07)January 7, 1882
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
DiedJuly 8, 1940(1940-07-08) (aged 58)
Hollywood, California, U.S.
OccupationFilm actor
Years active1917-1940
Spouse(s)Josephine Weller (1930-1940)

Biography

Bates was born in Chicago in 1882. He began his film career in the 1910s with Essanay Studios of the Chicago film industry.[1] He appeared on Broadway in the late 1920s and early 1930s, notably in the original production of Merrily We Roll Along (1934) by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.[2] He was also the Conductor in the original production of Twentieth Century (1932).[3]

From the 1930s, he appeared in a number of classic films, although sometimes uncredited. He received favorable notice for his character roles, such as in My Favorite Wife (1940), where he played an irascible judge - The New York Times critic Bosley Crowther wrote "Mr. Bates deserves a separate mention for his masterpiece of comic creation."[4] Another New York Times reviewer noted that "Edward Ellis and Granville Bates provoked an early audience yesterday to gentle laughter in a brief but quietly amusing sequence" in Chatterbox (1936),[5] while Crowther praised his work in Men Against the Sky (1940): "The players' performances are stock and pedestrian, excepting that of Granville Bates as a cynical banker".[6] Bates died of a heart attack in 1940.

Selected filmography

References
  1. "No Holiday for Death". Oakland (CA) Tribune. 14 July 1940. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  2. "Granville Bates". Playbill. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  3. Twentieth Century at the Internet Broadway Database
  4. Bosley Crowther (May 31, 1940). "The Screen; 'My Favorite Wife' a Lively Farce, With Cary Grant and Irene Dunne, at the Music Hall--2 Other Films". The New York Times.
  5. T. M. P. (February 15, 1936). "At the RKO Albee". The New York Times.
  6. Bosley Crowther (September 12, 1940). "The Screen; At the Rialto". The New York Times.
  7. The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States, Volume 1. University of California Press. 1993. p. 63. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
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