Veteran film and television actress

Jeanne Bates, 89, a veteran actress who played Nurse Wills on TV’s “Ben Casey” in the 1960s and the mother in David Lynch’s bizarre 1977 cult favorite “Eraserhead,” died of breast cancer Wednesday at the Motion Picture & Television Fund hospital in Woodland Hills.

Born May 21, 1918, in Berkeley, Bates began her acting career appearing on radio soap operas in San Francisco while attending San Mateo Junior College.

She played the lead -- and supplied the signature scream -- on the radio mystery series “Whodunit.” She married the program’s writer, Lew X. Lansworth, in 1943, two years after the show moved to Hollywood.

Under contract to Columbia Pictures, Bates made her film debut in the 1943 Boston Blackie mystery “The Chance of a Lifetime,” starring Chester Morris. She was the heroine in the 1943 serial “The Phantom,” starring Tom Tyler.

In addition to playing Nurse Wills on the medical drama “Ben Casey,” Bates made numerous guest appearances on TV shows from 1950 to 2002, including “Perry Mason,” “Gunsmoke,” “Lassie” and “The Twilight Zone.”

Bates, a longtime member of Theatre West, also had small roles in films such as “Death of a Salesman,” “Die Hard 2,” “Grand Canyon” and “Mulholland Dr.”