Kathy Bates Jeopardy Clues

Actress Kathy Bates has been the topic of a whole slew of Jeopardy! clues from 1996 to 2013. On July 13, 2013, the quiz show devoted a whole category to her: “Kathy Bates Gone Wild”. She was in one Final Jeopardy clue in 1998 with fellow actress Debbie Reynolds, concerning a role that they both played — (The Unsinkable) Molly Brown. Her roles in Stephen King films “Misery” and “Dolores Claiborne” have come up, as well as “Fried Green Tomatoes” and “About Schmidt”. Her work on various TV shows, such as “All My Children” and “Picket Fences”, has also appeared in clues.

Here is Kathy accepting the Oscar at the 63rd Academy Awards on 3/25/1991 for her role as the mentally unbalanced Annie Wilkes in Misery (1990). Mentally unbalanced. Ha! That’s putting it mildly.

The American Film Institute voted Annie Wilkes the 17th most iconic villain on its list of 100 Greatest Heroes and Villains of all time.

Speaking of villains, here’s something about Kathy Bates that is very interesting, even if we never see anything about it in a Jeopardy! clue: her grandfather was Finis Langdon Bates, Tennessee lawyer and author of “The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth” (1907). Bates believed that John Wilkes Booth did not die in a Virginia barn on April 26, 1865, and lived in Texas under the alias John St. Helen. What happened after that, and how Bates came into possession of a mummy, purported to be John Wilkes Booth, is talked about in detail in Brad Meltzer’s Decoded: The Lincoln Assassination. Kathy’s sister, Mary Bates Webhi, appears in that episode, which is available on Amazon

Also check out John Wilkes Booth Facts and Trivia