Kathy Bates Says Garry Marshall Rejected Her for Role Due to Her Looks

Kathy Bates claims the late Garry Marshall declined to solid her in 1991’s Frankie and Johnny due to her look.

The veteran actress opened up about the best way she was handled in Hollywood all through her profession due to her look throughout a latest interview with Vanity Fair. Following her breakout position in 1990’s Misery, which earned her a greatest actress Oscar, Bates recalled it being “like a desert” as she waited for one more nice challenge, partly as a result of she didn’t appear like standard film stars.

At the time, she stated Marshall, who died in 2016, declined to solid her in his movie adaptation of the off-Broadway manufacturing Frankie and Johnny within the Clair de Lune, although she originated the stage position, as a result of he couldn’t image her taking part in a romantic lead.

“He couldn’t make the leap that people would see me onscreen kissing someone,” Bates claimed. “Me actually kissing a man onscreen — that would not be romantic.”

Hearing that didn’t shock the Matlock star, as a result of, “Well, I’ve always had that,” she stated. She additionally recalled the time she realized that her father as soon as informed her hometown appearing instructor in Tennessee, “You know, she’s not conventionally attractive.”

Michelle Pfeiffer was in the end solid as Frankie, reverse Al Pacino’s Johnny, in Marshall’s movie, primarily based on Terrence McNally’s play. It follows Johnny, who will get a job in a café after being launched from jail, as he develops emotions for waitress Frankie.

Even although Bates has heard feedback about her seems earlier than, that doesn’t imply they don’t sting any much less. She additionally recounted a British journalist as soon as asking her At Play within the Fields of the Lord co-star Aidan Quinn, who performs her husband, through the 1991 movie’s press tour, “You’re a leading man. Is it believable that you and Kathy would be married?”

Bates was devastated and, after, “went upstairs, I locked the door and I cried like a kindergartner,” she stated.

The actress went on to show her skills in Hollywood, incomes three extra Oscar nominations. However, after dealing with crude feedback about her look for years, reward is usually nonetheless laborious for Bates to course of, akin to when she acquired a standing ovation on the Critics Choice Awards earlier this yr for her work in Matlock.

“It’s the affirmation of a career that hasn’t always been up here with the A-team going to Ibiza or whatever, you know?” she stated. “It hasn’t been a straight trajectory.”