Kathy Bates claims the late Garry Marshall declined to cast her in 1991’s Frankie and Johnny because of her appearance.
The veteran actress opened up about the way she was treated in Hollywood throughout her career because of her appearance during a recent interview with Vanity Fair. Following her breakout role in 1990’s Misery, which earned her a best actress Oscar, Bates recalled it being “like a desert” as she waited for another great project, partly because she didn’t look like conventional movie stars.
At the time, she said Marshall, who died in 2016, declined to cast her in his film adaptation of the off-Broadway production Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, even though she originated the stage role, because he couldn’t picture her playing 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 surprise the Matlock star, because, “Well, I’ve always had that,” she said. She also recalled the time she learned that her father once told her hometown acting teacher in Tennessee, “You know, she’s not conventionally attractive.”
Michelle Pfeiffer was ultimately cast as Frankie, opposite Al Pacino’s Johnny, in Marshall’s film, based on Terrence McNally’s play. It follows Johnny, who gets a job in a café after being released from prison, as he develops feelings for waitress Frankie.
Even though Bates has heard comments about her looks before, that doesn’t mean they don’t sting any less. She also recounted a British journalist once asking her At Play in the Fields of the Lord co-star Aidan Quinn, who plays her husband, during the 1991 film’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 said.
The actress went on to prove her talents in Hollywood, earning three more Oscar nominations. However, after facing crude comments about her appearance for years, praise is sometimes still hard for Bates to process, such as when she received a standing ovation at the Critics Choice Awards earlier this year 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 said. “It hasn’t been a straight trajectory.”
