Kathy Bates is an actress.
Kathleen Doyle Bates ( born June 28 , 1948 ) is an American actress . Bates began her career on the stage , and was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play in 1983 for her performance in ` night , Mother . She rose to prominence with her performance in Misery ( 1990 ) , for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress . She followed this with major roles in Fried Green Tomatoes ( 1991 ) and Dolores Claiborne ( 1995 ) , before playing a featured role as Molly Brown in Titanic ( 1997 ) , which was at the time the highest grossing film of all time . She won another Emmy Award in 2012 for her portrayal as the ghost of Charlie Harper on CBS comedy series Two and a Half Men , a role formerly portrayed by Charlie Sheen .