Jeanne Bates

Jeanne Bates (May 21, 1918 – November 28, 2007) was an American radio, film, and television actress whose career spanned six decades, beginning in the early 1940s and concluding with a cameo in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive in 2001. Born in Berkeley, California, she first entered the performing arts while attending San Mateo Junior College, where she landed lead roles on San Francisco‑produced radio soap operas and became the iconic voice of the mystery series Whodunit, even providing its signature scream. After the end of World War II the program was revived as Murder Will Out, and her radio work caught the attention of Columbia Pictures, which signed her to a contract in 1942. She made her film debut in the Boston Blackie mystery The Chance of a Lifetime (1943) and quickly moved into genre pictures, most famously playing Bela Lugosi’s first victim in The Return of the Vampire (1943) and appearing in horror staples such as The Soul of a Monster (1944) and Back from the Dead (1957). Throughout the 1950s and 1960s she became a reliable character actress on television, guest‑starring in series ranging from The Lone Ranger to Perry Mason, and earned a memorable recurring role as Nurse Wills on the ABC medical drama Ben Casey from 1961 to 1966.
In the later part of her career she worked with avant‑garde director David Lynch, first in the surreal cult classic Eraserhead (1977) as the enigmatic Mrs. X, and then resurfacing three decades later in a brief but poignant turn in Mulholland Drive (2001), which would be her final film credit before her death. Beyond the screen she taught acting, appeared on Broadway in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1982), and remained an active member of the Hollywood community until a battle with breast cancer claimed her life in 2007 at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital. Her interment at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills marks the resting place of a versatile performer whose work bridged classic studio horror, golden‑age television, and modern independent cinema.