THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 29, 1995 TAG: 9503290028
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 107 lines
LOOKING AT THE bare plot of Kathy Bates' new film, you'd think it was a case of ``Misery'' loves company.
She again plays a shady woman in an adaptation of a Stephen King work. ``Dolores Claiborne,'' though, is different from her role as Annie Wilkes, the obsessed fan who wielded a mean sledgehammer in ``Misery.''
``Oh, I think Dolores is miles, miles away from Annie,'' Bates said as she settled down for an interview. ``Dolores is 55 years old and is a crusty old codger. She has a filthy mouth and she takes no guff from anyone, yet she has a real sense of dignity. She's borne her sorrow, and her life, with a certain dignity.''
A Memphis native, Bates has the air of a no-nonsense, plain, simple woman with Southern demeanor and courtesy.
She went to Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where, she says, she first began to lose her Southern accent.
``I still haven't lost it,'' she said. ``I talk to you and it comes right back. I don't want to ever lose my identity. I just needed to get rid of the regionalism so that I could play a wide range of parts.''
She worked in regional theater in Washington, D.C., and the Actors Theater in Louisville, Ky., before going to New York City in 1975 to appear in the Off-Broadway hit ``Vanities.''
On Broadway, she received a Tony nomination playing the suicidal daughter in Marsha Norman's Pulitzer Prize-winning `` 'night, Mother.'' When the movie was made, Sissy Spacek got the part.
The same thing happened when the Off-Broadway play ``Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune'' headed to the big screen. The movie was retitled ``Frankie and Johnny,'' and the part was rewritten to star the much-different Michelle Pfeiffer.
``I don't agree that it was rewritten to make it a `glamorous' part,'' Pfeiffer said at the time. ``Personally, I think Kathy Bates is beautiful herself.''
It was ``Misery,'' though, that really launched Bates' career by earning her a surprise Oscar win.
Now, in ``Dolores Claiborne,'' she has an even more harrowing, though more subtle, role.
Dolores Claiborne lives on an isolated island off Maine (even though the movie was filmed on Nova Scotia). Some 25 years ago, her husband (played by David Strathairn) died when he fell down a well. There are those in town who still believe she killed him, including Detective John Mackey, played by Christopher Plummer. When Dolores' wealthy, hateful, employer is found dead, with Dolores hovering over her, the detective vows that he'll nab her this time.
To muddy the plot, Dolores' estranged daughter, a New York journalist played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, returns to town.
Bates is getting rave reviews, suggesting that next year's Academy Awards race already has its first contender.
``It was a very physical part,'' Bates said. ``It took two and a half hours to get ready each morning. First, I'd spend two hours with the makeup artist. Then I'd warm up with the dialect coach. I had a coach help me with the Maine accent. It's a difficult one. Then I'd go walking for 30 minutes, to get in the character. As I walked, I'd practice moving like her. I fancied that she had a spine problem caused by an assault years ago.
``It was like returning to acting school. I was using big, physical movements. In movies, we so often forget that because so much acting is done in close-ups. An actress has to remember that the way she moves, her physical language, tells a great deal about her.''
Bates was first attracted to the part via King's book, even though it is vastly different from the finished movie.
``The book is written as a first-person confession,'' Bates said. ``In it, the mother and daughter never met. It was the script writer who dreamed up having the conflict between mother and daughter. It's great to play.''
Some people are declaring that the movie is both a tear-jerker and a woman's film. Bates disclaims both, saying: ``I wouldn't call it a woman's picture at all. I liked `Rambo,' but would you call that just a man's picture? Audiences bring their own emotion to it. They always do. I, for example, have two favorite tear-jerker movies, `How Green Was My Valley' and ``To Kill a Mockingbird.' But this is an upbeat movie too. I think people will have a lot of fun with it.''
Bates has appeared in such movies as ``Fried Green Tomatoes,'' ``Men Don't Leave,'' ``White Palace,'' ``Dick Tracy'' and Woody Allen's ``Shadows and Fog.'' For ``At Play in the Fields of the Lord'' she even had a nude scene - wearing just mud.
This summer, she'll appear in ``Angus,'' co-starring George C. Scott.
She's going into directing for the dramatic special ``Talking With . . . '' to be aired April 19 on PBS. It is a series of monologues performed by several actors, including Celeste Holm, Mary Kay Place, Frances McDormand, Marcia Gay Harden and Beverly D'Angelo.
Bates vows, though, that she is not a workaholic. ``I can very happily not work for months at a time,'' she said. ``I can wait for parts I really want to do.''
As for Dolores Claiborne, the character, she admits, ``She's a very complex woman. I've had some trouble getting rid of her. She's hanging around with me.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Kathy Bates, who earned star billing in ``Misery,'' heads the cast
of another Stephen King story, ``Dolores Claiborne.''
JOHN CLIFFORD /
Castle Rock
Applying Kathy Bates' makeup for ``Dolores Claiborne'' took two
hours a day.
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