Norma Bates (Psycho)

Psycho character
Norma Bates
Norma as a corpse in Psycho (1960)
Born	Norma Spool 1909
Died	1949 (aged 40) Fairvale, California, U.S.
Aliases	"Mother"
Gender	Female
Cause of death	Poisoned with strychnine by Norman Bates
Race	Caucasian
Spouse(s)	John Bates (husband, deceased)
Children	Norman Bates (son) Robert Newman (son; Bloch's novels only)
Other family	Emma Spool (sister, deceased; film canon only) Dr. Constance "Connie" Forbes-Bates (daughter-in-law; film canon only)
Enemies	Everyone except her son, especially other women
M.O.	Taking over her son's mind, causing him to stab his victims to death while wearing her clothing
Weapon of choice	Kitchen knife
Portrayed by	Virginia Gregg, Jeanette Nolan, Paul Jasmin (Psycho) Virginia Gregg (Psycho II - Psycho III) Olivia Hussey, Alice Hirson (Psycho IV: The Beginning) John Kassir (Oatmeal Crisp commercial (1990)) Rose Marie (Psycho (1998)) Vera Farmiga (Bates Motel)

Norma Bates (née Spool) is a fictional character created by Robert Bloch in his 1959 novel Psycho, and its 1960 film of the same name directed by Alfred Hitchcock, its sequels, and the television series Bates Motel portrayed by Vera Farmiga. She is the mother of serial killer Norman Bates. Although despite playing a major role, she only appears as a corpse and a voice in the films, and is not depicted as a living character until Psycho IV: The Beginning originally portrayed by Olivia Hussey.

Film portrayals

Psycho

After the death of her husband John Bates, Norma raises her son Norman with cruelty: she forbids him to have a life away from her, and teaches him that sexual intercourse is sinful and that all women (except herself) are whores. The novels also suggests that their relationship may have been incestuous and reveals that Norma had another son, Robert Newman, Norman's twin brother, who was taken away due to being born brain damaged.

For many years, Norma and Norman live together "as if there is no one else in the world". When Norman is a teenager, his mother meets Joe Considine (Chet Rudolph in Psycho IV: The Beginning), whom she begins dating and plans to marry. Considine convinces Norma to open a motel. Norman grows insanely jealous, believing that Norma has abandoned him for her fiancé, and murders them with strychnine. He then forges a suicide note, making it look like Norma had killed Considine and then herself.

Unable to bear the loss of his mother, Norman steals Norma's corpse and mummifies it, and speaks to it as if his mother were still alive. He also speaks to himself in her voice and frequently dresses in her clothes; in his own mind, he becomes his mother in order to escape the guilt of having murdered her. The Mother personality is as possessive and cruel as Norma had been in life; Mother dominates and belittles him, forbids him to have friends, and kills any woman that he feels attracted to. When Norman regains consciousness, he discovers the crime he is convinced his mother has committed, and destroys the evidence.

One of Mother's victims is Marion Crane (Mary in the novel), who fled to the Bates Motel after stealing money from her employer in order to marry her boyfriend, Sam Loomis. She draws the attention of private investigator Milton Arbogast to the motel and then the house, where Norman refuses to let him see his mother. Suspicious, Arbogast goes to the Bates house, where Mother kills him as well. Sam and Lila Crane, Marion's sister, soon arrive, suspecting Norman of killing Marion for the money. Lila discovers Mrs. Bates' corpse in the fruit cellar while searching the house; moments later, Norman attacks her while in his Mother persona, only to be subdued by Sam. Norman is then arrested and institutionalized, and the Mother persona takes complete, permanent control of his mind.

Psycho II

Twenty-two years later, Norman Bates, now supposedly cured, is released from the institution and returns home. He is soon confronted by notes supposedly written by Mrs. Bates and phone calls by someone who claims to be his mother. Norman takes a job at a local diner and befriends Emma Spool, the cook, and a waitress named Mary Samuels, who has boyfriend trouble and is left without a home. Norman offers Mary a room at his house, and she reluctantly accepts. At about this time, a series of mysterious murders are committed by a woman with a knife to people who come to the motel and the house.

Norman's sanity begins to unravel, as he starts to believe that it is his mother's ghost that commits the murders. His psychiatrist, Dr. Bill Raymond, shows him Mrs. Bates' corpse and reveals to him that Mary Samuels is actually Mary Loomis, Sam Loomis's daughter, and is plotting with her mother, Lila, to drive him crazy in order to get him recommited for Marion's murder; they both dress up as Norman's mother and appear through the window of her bedroom. Mary believes that the murderer is hiding in Norman's house, and when Norman explains to Mary that the murderer might be his real mother, she speculates that he might have been adopted.

While Norman is at the swamp with the police where a car containing the corpse of Warren Toomey, the ex-manager of the motel is found, Lila sneaks in the house to dress up as Mother, but then the murderer comes in and kills her. When Mary and Norman return to the house, Norman receives a phone call from Dr. Raymond; in his mind, however, the phone call is from Mother. Mary, disturbed, tries to convince Norman to stop answering the phone by dressing up as his mother, complete with a butcher knife. Mary accidentally kills Dr. Raymond, who has come to the house to catch Mary, and Norman tries to hide her from the police. Mary discovers Lila's corpse hidden in a pile of coal, and, convinced Norman is the murderer, tries to kill him. The police intervene just in time however, and shoot her dead.

That night, Mrs. Spool visits Norman and reveals that she is his real mother, and that Norma Bates was actually his aunt; Mrs. Spool had been put in a mental institution shortly after giving birth to Norman, and her sister, Mrs. Bates, had adopted him and told him that he was her son. Mrs. Spool then reveals that she had committed the murders in order to protect Norman. Norman gives her a cup of tea, brewed from a poisoned batch which was kept in a beaten floral-print tin; this is the same tea he used to kill Mrs. Bates when he was a child. Mrs. Spool begins to cough and Norman bludgeons her to death with a shovel, and carries her body up to Mother's room, where the Mother personality takes control of his mind once again.

Mrs. Bates appears in a flashback when Norman returns home after twenty-two years. He remembers when he killed her in her bedroom, poisoning her tea and seeing her hand on the floor through her slightly ajar bedroom door.

Psycho III

One month later, a reporter named Tracy Venable latches on to the history of the Bates/Spool families; her research leads her to the story of a love triangle between John Bates and the Spool sisters, Norma and Emma. Emma killed John in a jealous rage after Norma stole him away from her, and abducted the young Norman, convincing herself he was the child she had with John. Emma was arrested and institutionalized, and Norman was returned to his mother.

By this point in the series, Norman has begun murdering young women again under the control of the Mother personality. He finds some hope for redemption when he meets and falls in love with a young woman named Maureen Coyle, but Mother eventually wins out and kills her. Tracy finds Norman and tells him the truth about his parentage, and Norman attacks his aunt's preserved corpse. He is arrested and sent back to the institution, but proclaims that he is finally free.

Psycho IV

The fourth and final film in the series, retcons the revelations of the second and third film, supplying that Norman's father was stung to death by bees, removing all references to Emma Spool and retells much of Norman's and his mother's past from the original film. It is implied in the film that Mrs. Bates suffered from schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder, which Norman inherits. The film also explains that Norman has been released from the institution and is now married. When Norman finds out that his wife, Connie, is pregnant, he decides to kill her to prevent another of his "cursed" line from entering the world. He relents after his wife professes her love for him, however, and decides to rid himself of the past once and for all by burning down his mother's house. During this act, he sees visions of his mother mocking and tormenting him, but perseveres and destroys the house, finally free of his mother's voice, which demands to be let out.

In one of Norman's flashbacks, he remembers killing both his mother and her fiancé by putting strychnine in their iced tea, then dragging her to the fruit cellar where she died sitting on a rocking chair.

Television portrayals

Bates Motel

Norma Louise Bates (née Calhoun; previously Massett) is a main character in the A&E drama-thriller television series Bates Motel, a contemporary prequel to Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho, based on Robert Bloch's novel of the same name. Norma is portrayed in the series by Vera Farmiga. As in the novel and film, she is extremely possessive of her son and does everything she can to keep him to herself.

On the show, Norma's middle name is Louise.^[1] Her parents' names are revealed to be Ray and Francine "Frannie" Calhoun,^[2] and she describes her life with them as having been unhappy; her father was an abusive alcoholic and her mother was "sedated all the time".^[3] She was born and raised in Akron, Ohio.^[4]

In the pilot episode, Norma buys a motel in the coastal town of White Pine Bay, Oregon, and moves there with Norman (Freddie Highmore) following the death of her husband Sam (David Cubitt) in Arizona. The motel's former owner, Keith Summers (W. Earl Brown) breaks into the Bates' house and rapes Norma. Norman intervenes and subdues Summers, but Norma kills him in a fit of rage.^[5] She later reveals that Sam was physically abusive towards her and that Norman had killed him while in a dissociative state; she bought the motel and moved them away to protect him.^[6]

In this continuity, Norma has another son, Dylan Massett (Max Thieriot), who was conceived when she was raped as a teenager by her older brother Caleb (Kenny Johnson). Norma used Dylan's conception to escape from her troubled home life; she married her then-boyfriend, John Massett, and passed off her unborn child as his own.^[2] She would later divorce John to marry Sam, becoming estranged from Dylan and favoring Norman, her son with Sam, instead.^[7] After Norma marries Sheriff Alex Romero (Nestor Carbonell), Norman, wanting his mother all to his own, releases carbon monoxide into the house to kill his mother and himself, but is rescued by Romero, who fails to revive Norma.

Characterization

Norma Bates is not strictly a character in the novel by Bloch, and her presence is indicated only as a "ghost" voice and a corpse in the Psycho films.

To appease the press, Hitchcock claimed that his film, Psycho, would tell the story of "a young man whose mother was a homicidal maniac". In another teaser, Hitchcock allowed the leak of photos from the set of a director's chair emblazoned with the words "Mrs. Bates". There were individual photos of Hitchcock and every major cast member taking turns sitting in the chair, except for Anthony Perkins. Hitchcock claimed that, for the role of the mother, he considered casting a theatrical grand dame, such as Helen Hayes or Judith Anderson, who portrayed Mrs. Danvers in Hitchcock's film, Rebecca. Norma Varden, from the Hitchcock film, Strangers on a Train, had read the reports and lobbied the director for the role. To keep the plot of the film as a secret, Hitchcock started a hoax rumor about a casting call for Mrs. Bates.

To confuse the audience, Hitchcock hired six uncredited people to play the mother. Mrs. Bates was played by Mitzi Koestner, Anna Dore, and Margo Epper as body doubles; and voiced by Virginia Gregg, Jeanette Nolan, and Paul Jasmin (a friend of Perkins). The voices were throughly mixed, except for the last speech, which is all Gregg's.

Norma Bates was introduced as a living character in Psycho IV: The Beginning. Olivia Hussey was directly offered the role.

Portrayals

Virginia Gregg, Jeanette Nolan, and Paul Jasmin voiced the corpse of Norma Bates in Hitchcock's 1960 film adaptation of Bloch's novel. Only Gregg did Norma's voice in Psycho II and Psycho III. Alice Hirson provided the voice of Norma's corpse in Psycho IV: The Beginning. John Kassir voiced Norma's silhouette in a 1990 Oatmeal Crisp cereal commercial. Rose Marie voiced Norma's corpse in Gus Van Sant's 1998 remake. Olivia Hussey portrayed Norma as a living character in Psycho IV. Vera Farmiga portrayed Norma as a living character in the TV series Bates Motel.

Appearances

Film

• Psycho (1960)
  • As a corpse, voiced by Virginia Gregg, Jeanette Nolan, and Paul Jasmin.
• Psycho II (1983)
  • As a corpse, and in a flashback, voiced by Virginia Gregg.
• Psycho III (1986)
  • As a voice by Virginia Gregg.
• Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)
  • As a main character, portrayed by Olivia Hussey, and as a corpse, voiced by Alice Hirson.
• Psycho (1998)
  • As a corpse, voiced by Rose Marie.

Television

• Oatmeal Crisp commercial (1990)
  • As a silhouette, voiced by John Kassir.
• Bates Motel (2013–present)
  • As a main character (named Norma Louise Bates), portrayed by Vera Farmiga, who was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for her performance.

References

External links

• An analysis of the role of Mother in the Psycho franchise
• Norma Bates at the Internet Movie Database

Psycho
Novels	Psycho (1959) Psycho II (1982) Psycho House (1990) Psycho: Sanitarium (2016)
Films	Psycho (1960) Psycho II (1983) Psycho III (1986) Psycho (1998)
Television	Films Bates Motel (1987) Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990) Series Bates Motel (2013–present)
Characters	Norman Bates Norma Bates Marion Crane Lila Crane Emma Spool
Miscellaneous	Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho Hitchcock (2012) Robert Bloch's Psychos The Psycho Legacy (2010) "The Murder" "Motorpsycho Nitemare" Psycho: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture
Psycho