Luise Rainer
Encyclopedia
Luise Rainer is a former German film actress. Known as The "Viennese Teardrop", she was the first woman to win two Academy Awards, and the first person to win them consecutively. She was discovered by MGM talent scouts while acting on stage in Austria
and Germany
and after appearing in Austrian films. Aged 101, she is currently the oldest living Academy Award winner.
Her training began in Germany
from the age of 16 by leading stage director Max Reinhardt
. After a few years, she became recognized as a "distinguished Berlin stage actress", acting with Reinhardt's Vienna theater ensemble. Critics "raved" about her stage and film acting quality, leading MGM to sign her to a three-year contract and bring her to Hollywood in 1935. A number of filmmakers anticipated she might become another Greta Garbo
, MGM's leading female star.
Her first American role was in the film Escapade (1935), which was soon followed with a relatively small part in the musical biopic The Great Ziegfeld
(1936). Despite her limited appearances in the film, she "so impressed audiences" that she won the Oscar for Best Actress
. For her dramatic telephone scene in the film, she was later dubbed "the Viennese teardrop". In her next role, producer Irving Thalberg
was convinced, despite the studio's disagreement, that she could play the part of a poor uncomely Chinese farm wife in The Good Earth
, based on Pearl Buck's novel about hardship in China
. The subdued character she played was such a dramatic contrast to her previous, vivacious character, that she won another Academy Award.
However, she would later remark that by winning two consecutive Oscars, "nothing worse could have happened to me," as audience expectations from then on would be too high to fulfill. She was then given parts in a string of unimportant movies, leading MGM and Rainer to become disappointed, and she ended her brief three-year career in films, soon returning to Europe. Adding to her rapid decline, some feel, was the "poor career advice" given her by then husband, playwright Clifford Odets
, along with the unexpected death, at age 37, of her producer, Irving Thalberg
, whom she greatly admired. Some film historians consider her the "most extreme case of an Oscar victim in Hollywood mythology". She currently lives in London
.
Koenigsberger), Rainer was born in Düsseldorf
, Germany
and raised in Hamburg
, Germany
and Vienna
, Austria
. She once told a reporter: "I was born into a world of destruction. The Vienna of my childhood was one of starvation, poverty and revolution." Her father was a businessman who settled in Europe after spending most of his childhood in America, where he was sent at the age of 6 as an orphan. Her mother came from an upper-class German-Jewish family. A number of leading film references list her birthplace as Vienna
, Austria
.
Biographer Margaret Brenman-Gibson writes that Rainer was a premature baby, born two months early. She also had two brothers. Rainer describes her father as being "possessive" and "tempestuous," but whose affections and concern centered on her. Rainer seemed to him as "eternally absent-minded" and "very different." Rainer remembers his "tyrannical possessiveness," and was saddened to see her mother, "a beautiful pianist, and a woman of warmth and intelligence and deeply in love with her husband, suffering similarly".
Although generally shy at home, she was "immensely athletic" in school, becoming a champion runner and an "intrepid" mountain-climber, notes Brenman-Gibson. In addition to expending her energy in athletics, Rainer stated, "I became an actress only because I had quickly to find some vent for the emotion that inside of me went around and around, never stopping." It was her father's wish that she attend a good finishing school and "marry the right man," she remembers. However, her "rebellious" nature made her appear to be more a "tomboy," while at the same time, "happy to be alone", she feared she was "developing her mother's inferiority complex".
She was only six when she decided to be part of the entertainment world, and recalls being inspired by watching a circus
act: "I thought that a man on the wire was marvelous, in his spangles and tights. I wanted to run away and marry him but I never had an opportunity. I am sure, though, that the experience first disclosed to me the entertainment world. For years I longed to be able to walk on a tight wire, too."
At age 16 she chose to follow her dream to become an actress. Under the pretext of visiting her mother, Rainer instead traveled to Düsseldorf
and registered at the Dumont Theater, having prearranged an audition the same day. She later began studying acting with Max Reinhardt
, and by the time she was 18 there was already an "army of critics" who felt that she had "unusual" talent for a young actress. She became a "distinguished Berlin stage actress" acting with Reinhardt's Vienna theater ensemble. She made her first appearance on the stage at the Dumont Theater in 1928, followed by appearances at various theaters in Jacques Deval's play Mademoiselle, Kingsley's Men in White
, George Bernard Shaw
's Saint Joan
, Measure for Measure
, and Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author
.
She later appeared in several German language
films before being discovered in 1934 by MGM talent scout Phil Berg while performing in Six Characters in Search of an Author, who felt that she might appeal to the same audience as Greta Garbo
, then one of their most successful performers. Initially, Rainer had no interest in a film career, saying in a 1935 interview: "I never wanted to film. I was only for the theater. Then I saw A Farewell to Arms
and right away I wanted to film. It was so beautiful."
Rainer summered with her husband Clifford Odets
, Harold Clurman
and Elia Kazan
, among others, at the Pine Brook Country Club
located in the countryside of Nichols, Connecticut
which was the summer rehearsal headquarters of the Group Theatre (New York) during the 1930s and 1940s.
, both MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer
and story editor Samuel Marx
had seen footage of Rainer before she came to Hollywood, and both felt she had the looks, charm, and especially a "certain tender vulnerability" that Mayer admired in female stars. Because of her weak command of English, Mayer assigned actress Constance Collier
to train her in correct speech and dramatic modulation, and Rainer's speaking skills improved rapidly.
Upon arriving in Hollywood, Rainer spent eight weeks at the studio without being offered a job. Her first film role in Hollywood was in Escapade (1935), which was a remake of one of her Austrian films. She received the part after Myrna Loy
gave up the role. By the time Rainer was cast, half of the film was already shot. During the film's first preview, Rainer ran out of the cinema and later said about the event: "On the screen, I looked so big and full of face, it was awful." Following the film's release, Rainer received a lot of publicity and was often acclaimed the 'Elisabeth Bergner
of light comedy' by the press. She was hailed as 'Hollywood's next sensation' and had to do several interviews. From the beginning of her Hollywood career, she stated she did not like the stardom or giving interviews, explaining: "Stars are not important, only what they do as a part of their work is important. Artists need quiet in which to grow. It seems Hollywood does not like to give them this quiet. Stardom is bad because Hollywood makes too much of it, there is too much 'bowing down' before stars. Stardom is weight pressing down over the head — and one must grow upward or not at all."
Rainer was next assigned to play the real-life character Anna Held
, a small part in the musical biography The Great Ziegfeld
, which she obtained in August 1935. The film reunited her with actor William Powell
, with whom she also co-starred in Escapade. Powell was very impressed with Rainer and previously arranged her equal billing for Escapade. He described his impressions of her: "She is one of the most natural persons I have ever known. Moreover, she is generous, patient and possesses a magnificent sense of humor. She is an extremely sensitive organism and has a great comprehension of human nature. She has judgment and an abiding understanding which make it possible for her to portray human emotion poignantly and truly. Definitely a creative artist, she comprehends life and its significance. Everything she does has been subjected to painstaking analysis. She thinks over every shade of emotion to make it ring true. In Europe she is a great stage star. She deserves to be a star. Unmistakably she had all the qualities."
Higham notes that the film's producer, Irving Thalberg
, decided that "only she could play" the part. However, Rainer states that Mayer "did not want me to do the film, and said 'Anna Held is out of it before the film is halfway through. You are a star now and can't do it!'" Shortly after shooting began in late 1935, doubts of Rainer's ability to pull off the Anna Held role emerged in the press. She was criticized for not resembling the Polish-born stage performer, on which Leonard commented that any resemblance would have made the film less believable due to the expected constant comparison. The director admitted that "the main reason" Rainer was cast was her eyes, claiming that they "are just as large, just as lustrous, and contain the same tantalizing quality of pseudo naughtiness."
As Thalberg expected, she nonetheless succeeded in acting the role, which required "coquettishness, wide-eyed charm, and vulnerability." Despite her limited appearances in the film, biographer Charles Affron writes that Rainer "so impressed audiences with one highly emotional scene" that she won an Academy Award for Best Actress
. In the scene, her character as Anna Held is speaking to her ex-husband Florenz Ziegfeld over the telephone, attempting to congratulate him on his new marriage: "The camera records her agitation; Ziegfeld hears a voice that hovers between false gaiety and despair; when she hangs up she dissolves into tears."
On the evening of the Academy Award ceremonies, Rainer remained at home, not expecting to win any award. When Mayer then learned she won the award, he sent MGM publicity head Howard Strickling
racing to her home to get her. When she finally arrived, master of ceremonies George Jessel
, during the commotion, made the mistake of introducing Rainer, which Bette Davis
had been scheduled to do. She was also awarded the New York Film Critics' Award
for the role.
(1937), in which she co-starred with Paul Muni
. She was first rated the most likely choice for the female lead in the film adaption back in September 1935, and was cast two months later in November. The role was completely opposite her Anna Held character, where she now portrayed a humble Chinese
peasant. For the part, she acted utterly subservient to her husband, perpetually huddled in submission, and barely spoke a word of dialogue during the entire film. The extreme contrast in the role with her last one partly contributed to her winning another Oscar for Best Actress. She became the first actress to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat not matched until Katharine Hepburn
's two Oscar wins thirty years later. Film historian Andrew Sarris
states that her "comparative muteness was reckoned as an astounding tour de force after her hysterically chattering telephone scene in The Great Ziegfeld".
Rainer later recalled that studio head Louis B. Mayer
did not approve of the film being produced or her part in it: "He was horrified at Irving Thalberg
's insistence for me to play O-lan, the poor uncomely little Chinese peasant. I myself, with the meager dialogue given to me, feared to be a hilarious bore." Rainer remembers Mayer's comments to Thalberg: "She has to be a dismal-looking slave and grow old; but Luise is a young girl; we just have made her glamorous — what are you doing?" She considers the part as one of the "greatest achievements" in her career, stating that she was allowed to express "realism," even refusing to "wear the rubber mask Chinese look suggested by the make-up department", allowing her to act "genuine, honest, and down-to-earth".
There were a number of serious problems during production, however. George W. Hill
, a leading director at the time, was chosen to direct the film, and spent several months in China filming backgrounds and atmospheric scenes of farmlands around the Great Wall and in Peking. Soon after he returned, Hill committed suicide, and the film was postponed until Sidney Franklin
took over directing.
Then, before the film was completed, the film's producer, Irving Thalberg
, died suddenly at the age of 37. Rainer commented years later, "His dying was a terrible shock to us. He was young and ever so able. Had it not been that he died, I think I may have stayed much longer in films."
Rainer described winning the two Oscars as the "worst possible thing" to befall her career. In a 1938 interview, Rainer exclaimed that being awarded twice made her "work all the harder now to prove the Academy was right." The critic James Agate
admired Rainer's performance in The Good Earth and described it as "an exquisite rendering", however she was criticised in reviews by Picturegoer
. Max Breen was among those critics indignant that Greta Garbo's performance in Camille
had been overlooked in favor of Rainer.
's long-suffering wife Poldi in the successful Oscar-winning MGM musical biopic The Great Waltz
, her last big hit.
Her four other films for MGM, The Emperor's Candlesticks
(1937), Big City
(1937) with Spencer Tracy
, The Toy Wife
(1938) and Dramatic School (1938), were ill-advised and not well received, though Rainer continued to receive praise. The Emperor's Candlesticks, in which Rainer was cast in November 1936, reunited Rainer with Powell for the final time. For the film, she wore a red wig and received costumes designed by Adrian
, who claimed that Rainer, by the end of 1937, would become one of most influential people in fashion of Hollywood. On set, she received star treatment, having her own dressing room, diction teacher, secretary, wardrobe woman, hairdresser and make-up artist. The Emperor's Candlesticks was Rainer's first film for which she received criticism, it being claimed that she did not improve in her acting technique.
Even though reviews were favourable of Rainer's performance in Big City, reviewers agreed that the actress was miscast in a 'modern role' and looked "too exotic" as Tracy's wife. Despite the criticism and announcements of leaving Hollywood, Rainer renewed her contract for seven years shortly after the film's release.
Most critics agreed Rainer was "at her most appealing" in The Toy Wife, in which she was cast in April 1938. The final MGM Rainer made was Dramatic School, in which she was cast in May 1938.
Rainer refused to be stereotyped or to knuckle under to the studio system and studio head Mayer was unsympathetic to her demands for serious roles. Furthermore, she began to fight for a higher salary and she was reported as being difficult and temperamental. Thereby, she missed out on several roles, including the female lead in the Edward G. Robinson
gangster film The Last Gangster
(1937), in which another Viennese actress, Rose Stradner, replaced her. Speaking of Mayer decades later, Rainer recalled, "He said, 'We made you and we are going to destroy you.' Well, he tried his best."
. Nevertheless, she was not released from her contract and by 1940, she was still bound to make one more film for the studio. Disenchanted with Hollywood, where she later said it was impossible to have an intellectual conversation, she moved to New York City
in 1940 to live with her husband, playwright Clifford Odets
, whom she had married in 1937. Rainer and Odets were divorced three years later. Rainer had never made it a secret that she felt terrible as Odets' wife, and exclaimed in a 1938 interview: "All the acting I've done on the stage or screen has been nothing compared to the acting I did in New York, when I tried to make everyone think I was happy – and my heart was breaking." She filed for divorce in mid-1938, but proceedings were delayed "to next October" when Odets fled to England. The divorce was finalized on May 14, 1940. Rainer and Odets
summered at Pine Brook Country Club
in Nichols, Connecticut
, where numerous other members of the Group Theatre (New York) also spent their summers, both acting and writing.
Despite the negativity, Rainer was one of the actresses considered for the role of Scarlett O'Hara
in Gone With the Wind
(1939), but the idea was not well-received, and she was not given a screen test
. In a later interview, Rainer commented on her disappearance in the movie industry by saying: "I was very young. There were a lot of things I was unprepared for. I was too honest, I talked serious instead of with my eyelashes and Hollywood thought I was cuckoo. I worked in seven big pictures in three years. I have to be inspired to give a good performance. I complained to a studio executive that the source was dried up. The executive told me, 'Why worry about the source. Let the director worry about that.' I didn't run away from anybody in Hollywood. I ran away from myself."
on May 1, 1939 as Françoise in Jacques Deval's play Behold the Bride, and her first London appearance at the Shaftesbury Theatre
on May 23, 1939 in the same part. Returning to America, she made her first appearance on the New York stage at the Music Box Theatre
in May 1942 as Miss Thing in J. M. Barrie
's A Kiss for Cinderella.
In World War II, she signed a visa affidavit to get Bertolt Brecht
out of Nazi Germany because she "loved his poetry". In return, he wrote the role of Grusha Vashnadze in his 1944 play The Caucasian Chalk Circle
for Rainer. However they had a disagreement and she never played it.
She made one more film appearance in Hostages in 1943 and abandoned film making in 1944 after marrying publisher Robert Knittel. She initially did not plan on returning to the screen, but explained her comeback in 1943 by saying: "All the professor and the other students cared about was whether I could answer the questions, not whether I could come to class looking glamorous. But after that brief return to the stage, I began to realize that all the doors which had been opened to me in Europe, and all the work I had been able to accomplish for refugee children, was due to the fact that people knew me from my screen work. I began to feel a sense of responsibility to a job which I had started and never finished. When I also felt, after that experience at Dennis, that perhaps I did have talent after all, and that my too-sudden stardom was not just a matter of happy accident, I decided to go back."
When Rainer returned to Hollywood, her contract at MGM had long expired and she had no agent. David Rose, head of Paramount Pictures
, offered her to star in an English film shot on location, but war conditions prevented her from accepting the role. Instead, Rose suggested her in 1942 to take a screen test for the lead role in For Whom the Bell Tolls
(1943), but Ingrid Bergman
was cast. Rainer eventually settled on a role in the small film Hostages (1943) and told the press about the role: "It's certainly not an Academy Award part, and thank goodness, my bosses don't expect me to win an award with it. [..] No, this is something unspectacular but I hope, a step back in the right direction."
Rainer had become an American
citizen in the 1940s, but she and Knittel had lived in the UK
and Switzerland for most of their marriage. Robert Knitell died in 1989. They had one daughter, Francesca Knittel, now known as Francesca Knittel-Bowyer. Rainer now lives in Belgrave Square
, London
, in an apartment in the same building once inhabited by fellow two-time Oscar winner Vivien Leigh
.
Federico Fellini
enticed her to play the cameo role of the writer Dolores in his 1960 Oscar-winning classic La Dolce Vita
, to the point of her travelling to the Rome location. She quit the production prior to shooting, a fact attributed either to her resistance to an unwanted sex scene, or to her insistence on overseeing her own dialogue. The role was cut from the eventual screenplay.
Rainer made sporadic television and stage appearances following her and her husband's move to Britain, appearing in an episode of the World War II
television series Combat! in 1965. She took a dual role in a 1983 episode of The Love Boat
. For the latter she received a standing ovation from the crew. She appeared in The Gambler
(1997) in a small role, marking her film comeback at the age of 86. She made appearances at the 1998 and 2003 Academy Awards ceremonies as part of special retrospective tributes to past Oscar winners.
On 12 January 2010, Rainer celebrated her centenary
in London. Actor Sir Ian McKellen
was one of her guests. During that month, she was present at the British Film Institute
tribute to her at the National Film Theatre, where she was interviewed by Richard Stirling before screenings of The Good Earth and The Great Waltz. She also appeared onstage at the National Theatre
, where she was interviewed by Sir Christopher Frayling
. In April 2010 she returned to Hollywood to present a TCM
festival screening of The Good Earth.
Rainer has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
at 6300 Hollywood Boulevard.
On 24 February 2011, at the age of 101, she said in an interview to BBC Radio 4
that the Oscars were not as ostentatious as they are now. She also said that she saw the film The King's Speech
and found it "marvellous". She was sharp and full of wit and dignity.
On September 5, 2011, Rainer travelled to Berlin
, Germany to receive a star on the "Boulevard der Stars". Her star was the twenty first issued in 2011 and followed twenty that were issued in 2010. The star was issued as an exception and not without controversy . Rainer had been forgotten when the Boulevard der Stars opened in 2010, despite being Germany's only Academy Award winning actress . In 2011 she was initially rejected by the jury (Senta Berger
, Gero Gandert, Uwe Kammann, Dieter Kosslick
& Hans Helmut Prinzler) despite being nominated . A prolonged campaign started in October 2010, led by music executive Paul DH Baylay, who noticed Rainer's omission on the Boulevard . Baylay campaigned in Germany, lobbying press and politicians to support the campaign to have the actress and her work recognised. The campaign was supported by The Central Council of Jews. In August 2011, The Boulevard der Stars, finally relented acknowledging the Facebook, email and letter campaign led by Baylay was key in their decision to awarding an extra star in favour of Rainer.
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and after appearing in Austrian films. Aged 101, she is currently the oldest living Academy Award winner.
Her training began in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
from the age of 16 by leading stage director Max Reinhardt
Max Reinhardt
----Max Reinhardt was an Austrian theater and film director and actor.-Biography:...
. After a few years, she became recognized as a "distinguished Berlin stage actress", acting with Reinhardt's Vienna theater ensemble. Critics "raved" about her stage and film acting quality, leading MGM to sign her to a three-year contract and bring her to Hollywood in 1935. A number of filmmakers anticipated she might become another Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
, MGM's leading female star.
Her first American role was in the film Escapade (1935), which was soon followed with a relatively small part in the musical biopic The Great Ziegfeld
The Great Ziegfeld
The Great Ziegfeld is a 1936 musical film produced by MGM. A fictionalized biography of Florenz Ziegfeld from his show business beginnings to his death, it showcases a series of spectacular musical productions. The film includes original music by Walter Donaldson and Irving Berlin...
(1936). Despite her limited appearances in the film, she "so impressed audiences" that she won the Oscar for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
. For her dramatic telephone scene in the film, she was later dubbed "the Viennese teardrop". In her next role, producer Irving Thalberg
Irving Thalberg
Irving Grant Thalberg was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and his extraordinary ability to select the right scripts, choose the right actors, gather the best production staff and make very profitable films.-Life and...
was convinced, despite the studio's disagreement, that she could play the part of a poor uncomely Chinese farm wife in The Good Earth
The Good Earth (film)
The Good Earth is a film about Chinese farmers who struggle to survive. It was adapted by Talbot Jennings, Tess Slesinger, and Claudine West from the play by Donald Davis and Owen Davis, which was in itself based on the 1931 novel of the same name by Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S...
, based on Pearl Buck's novel about hardship in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. The subdued character she played was such a dramatic contrast to her previous, vivacious character, that she won another Academy Award.
However, she would later remark that by winning two consecutive Oscars, "nothing worse could have happened to me," as audience expectations from then on would be too high to fulfill. She was then given parts in a string of unimportant movies, leading MGM and Rainer to become disappointed, and she ended her brief three-year career in films, soon returning to Europe. Adding to her rapid decline, some feel, was the "poor career advice" given her by then husband, playwright Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, socialist, and social protester.-Early life:Odets was born in Philadelphia to Romanian- and Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Louis Odets and Esther Geisinger, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high...
, along with the unexpected death, at age 37, of her producer, Irving Thalberg
Irving Thalberg
Irving Grant Thalberg was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and his extraordinary ability to select the right scripts, choose the right actors, gather the best production staff and make very profitable films.-Life and...
, whom she greatly admired. Some film historians consider her the "most extreme case of an Oscar victim in Hollywood mythology". She currently lives in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
Early life and career
The daughter of Heinz Rainer and Emmy (néeNEE
NEE is a political protest group whose goal was to provide an alternative for voters who are unhappy with all political parties at hand in Belgium, where voting is compulsory.The NEE party was founded in 2005 in Antwerp...
Koenigsberger), Rainer was born in Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and raised in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. She once told a reporter: "I was born into a world of destruction. The Vienna of my childhood was one of starvation, poverty and revolution." Her father was a businessman who settled in Europe after spending most of his childhood in America, where he was sent at the age of 6 as an orphan. Her mother came from an upper-class German-Jewish family. A number of leading film references list her birthplace as Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
.
Biographer Margaret Brenman-Gibson writes that Rainer was a premature baby, born two months early. She also had two brothers. Rainer describes her father as being "possessive" and "tempestuous," but whose affections and concern centered on her. Rainer seemed to him as "eternally absent-minded" and "very different." Rainer remembers his "tyrannical possessiveness," and was saddened to see her mother, "a beautiful pianist, and a woman of warmth and intelligence and deeply in love with her husband, suffering similarly".
Although generally shy at home, she was "immensely athletic" in school, becoming a champion runner and an "intrepid" mountain-climber, notes Brenman-Gibson. In addition to expending her energy in athletics, Rainer stated, "I became an actress only because I had quickly to find some vent for the emotion that inside of me went around and around, never stopping." It was her father's wish that she attend a good finishing school and "marry the right man," she remembers. However, her "rebellious" nature made her appear to be more a "tomboy," while at the same time, "happy to be alone", she feared she was "developing her mother's inferiority complex".
She was only six when she decided to be part of the entertainment world, and recalls being inspired by watching a circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
act: "I thought that a man on the wire was marvelous, in his spangles and tights. I wanted to run away and marry him but I never had an opportunity. I am sure, though, that the experience first disclosed to me the entertainment world. For years I longed to be able to walk on a tight wire, too."
At age 16 she chose to follow her dream to become an actress. Under the pretext of visiting her mother, Rainer instead traveled to Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
and registered at the Dumont Theater, having prearranged an audition the same day. She later began studying acting with Max Reinhardt
Max Reinhardt
----Max Reinhardt was an Austrian theater and film director and actor.-Biography:...
, and by the time she was 18 there was already an "army of critics" who felt that she had "unusual" talent for a young actress. She became a "distinguished Berlin stage actress" acting with Reinhardt's Vienna theater ensemble. She made her first appearance on the stage at the Dumont Theater in 1928, followed by appearances at various theaters in Jacques Deval's play Mademoiselle, Kingsley's Men in White
Men in White
-Film and theatre:* Men in White , a 1933 drama written by Sidney S. Kingsley* Men in White , an American drama film* Men in White , a comedy film by National Lampoon Inc...
, George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's Saint Joan
Saint Joan (play)
Saint Joan is a play by George Bernard Shaw, based on the life and trial of Joan of Arc. Published not long after the canonization of Joan of Arc by the Roman Catholic Church, the play dramatises what is known of her life based on the substantial records of her trial. Shaw studied the transcripts...
, Measure for Measure
Measure for Measure
Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. It was classified as comedy, but its mood defies those expectations. As a result and for a variety of reasons, some critics have labelled it as one of Shakespeare's problem plays...
, and Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author
Six Characters in Search of an Author
Six Characters in Search of an Author is a play by the Italian writer Luigi Pirandello.The play is a satirical tragicomedy. It was first performed in 1921 at the Teatro Valle in Rome, to a very mixed reception, with shouts from the audience of "Manicomio!" .Subsequently the play enjoyed a much...
.
She later appeared in several German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
films before being discovered in 1934 by MGM talent scout Phil Berg while performing in Six Characters in Search of an Author, who felt that she might appeal to the same audience as Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
, then one of their most successful performers. Initially, Rainer had no interest in a film career, saying in a 1935 interview: "I never wanted to film. I was only for the theater. Then I saw A Farewell to Arms
A Farewell to Arms (1932 film)
A Farewell to Arms is a 1932 American romantic drama film directed by Frank Borzage, and starring Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes. The screenplay by Oliver H.P...
and right away I wanted to film. It was so beautiful."
Rainer summered with her husband Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, socialist, and social protester.-Early life:Odets was born in Philadelphia to Romanian- and Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Louis Odets and Esther Geisinger, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high...
, Harold Clurman
Harold Clurman
Harold Edgar Clurman was a visionary American theatre director and drama critic, "one of the most influential in the United States". He was most notable as one of the three founders of the New York City's Group Theatre...
and Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...
, among others, at the Pine Brook Country Club
Pine Brook Country Club
-Introduction:Pine Brook Country Club began when Benjamin Plotkin purchased Pinewood Lake and the surrounding countryside on Mischa Hill in the historic village of Nichols, Connecticut. Plotkin built an auditorium with a revolving stage and forty rustic cabins and incorporated as the Pine Brook...
located in the countryside of Nichols, Connecticut
Nichols, Connecticut
Nichols, a historic village in southeastern Trumbull on the Gold Coast of Fairfield County, was named after the family who maintained a large farm in its center for almost 300 years. The Nichols Farms Historic District, which encompasses part of the village, is listed on the National Register of...
which was the summer rehearsal headquarters of the Group Theatre (New York) during the 1930s and 1940s.
The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
After making a few films in Austria, for which "critics raved", she was offered a three-year contract with MGM and came to Hollywood in 1935 as a hopeful new star. According to biographer Charles HighamCharles Higham (biographer)
Charles Higham is an author, editor and poet. Higham is a recipient of the Prix des Créateurs of the Académie Française and the Poetry Society of London Prize.-Biography:...
, both MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer
Louis B. Mayer
Louis Burt Mayer born Lazar Meir was an American film producer. He is generally cited as the creator of the "star system" within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in its golden years. Known always as Louis B...
and story editor Samuel Marx
Samuel Marx
Samuel Marx was an American film producer, screenwriter and book author.-Life:...
had seen footage of Rainer before she came to Hollywood, and both felt she had the looks, charm, and especially a "certain tender vulnerability" that Mayer admired in female stars. Because of her weak command of English, Mayer assigned actress Constance Collier
Constance Collier
Constance Collier was an English film actress and acting coach.-Life and career:Born Laura Constance Hardie, in Windsor, Berkshire, Collier made her stage debut at the age of 3, when she played Fairy Peasblossom in A Midsummer's Night Dream...
to train her in correct speech and dramatic modulation, and Rainer's speaking skills improved rapidly.
Upon arriving in Hollywood, Rainer spent eight weeks at the studio without being offered a job. Her first film role in Hollywood was in Escapade (1935), which was a remake of one of her Austrian films. She received the part after Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy was an American actress. Trained as a dancer, she devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. Originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, her career prospects improved following her portrayal of Nora Charles...
gave up the role. By the time Rainer was cast, half of the film was already shot. During the film's first preview, Rainer ran out of the cinema and later said about the event: "On the screen, I looked so big and full of face, it was awful." Following the film's release, Rainer received a lot of publicity and was often acclaimed the 'Elisabeth Bergner
Elisabeth Bergner
Elisabeth Bergner was an actress.She was born Elisabeth Ettel in Drohobycz, Austro-Hungarian Empire ....
of light comedy' by the press. She was hailed as 'Hollywood's next sensation' and had to do several interviews. From the beginning of her Hollywood career, she stated she did not like the stardom or giving interviews, explaining: "Stars are not important, only what they do as a part of their work is important. Artists need quiet in which to grow. It seems Hollywood does not like to give them this quiet. Stardom is bad because Hollywood makes too much of it, there is too much 'bowing down' before stars. Stardom is weight pressing down over the head — and one must grow upward or not at all."
Rainer was next assigned to play the real-life character Anna Held
Anna Held
Helene Anna Held was a Polish-born stage performer, most often associated with impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, her common-law husband. -Early life:...
, a small part in the musical biography The Great Ziegfeld
The Great Ziegfeld
The Great Ziegfeld is a 1936 musical film produced by MGM. A fictionalized biography of Florenz Ziegfeld from his show business beginnings to his death, it showcases a series of spectacular musical productions. The film includes original music by Walter Donaldson and Irving Berlin...
, which she obtained in August 1935. The film reunited her with actor William Powell
William Powell
William Horatio Powell was an American actor.A major star at MGM, he was paired with Myrna Loy in 14 films, including the popular Thin Man series in which Powell and Loy played Nick and Nora Charles...
, with whom she also co-starred in Escapade. Powell was very impressed with Rainer and previously arranged her equal billing for Escapade. He described his impressions of her: "She is one of the most natural persons I have ever known. Moreover, she is generous, patient and possesses a magnificent sense of humor. She is an extremely sensitive organism and has a great comprehension of human nature. She has judgment and an abiding understanding which make it possible for her to portray human emotion poignantly and truly. Definitely a creative artist, she comprehends life and its significance. Everything she does has been subjected to painstaking analysis. She thinks over every shade of emotion to make it ring true. In Europe she is a great stage star. She deserves to be a star. Unmistakably she had all the qualities."
Higham notes that the film's producer, Irving Thalberg
Irving Thalberg
Irving Grant Thalberg was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and his extraordinary ability to select the right scripts, choose the right actors, gather the best production staff and make very profitable films.-Life and...
, decided that "only she could play" the part. However, Rainer states that Mayer "did not want me to do the film, and said 'Anna Held is out of it before the film is halfway through. You are a star now and can't do it!'" Shortly after shooting began in late 1935, doubts of Rainer's ability to pull off the Anna Held role emerged in the press. She was criticized for not resembling the Polish-born stage performer, on which Leonard commented that any resemblance would have made the film less believable due to the expected constant comparison. The director admitted that "the main reason" Rainer was cast was her eyes, claiming that they "are just as large, just as lustrous, and contain the same tantalizing quality of pseudo naughtiness."
As Thalberg expected, she nonetheless succeeded in acting the role, which required "coquettishness, wide-eyed charm, and vulnerability." Despite her limited appearances in the film, biographer Charles Affron writes that Rainer "so impressed audiences with one highly emotional scene" that she won an Academy Award for Best Actress
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
. In the scene, her character as Anna Held is speaking to her ex-husband Florenz Ziegfeld over the telephone, attempting to congratulate him on his new marriage: "The camera records her agitation; Ziegfeld hears a voice that hovers between false gaiety and despair; when she hangs up she dissolves into tears."
On the evening of the Academy Award ceremonies, Rainer remained at home, not expecting to win any award. When Mayer then learned she won the award, he sent MGM publicity head Howard Strickling
Howard Strickling
Howard Strickling served as head of publicity for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer pictures from the late 1920s into the early 1950s....
racing to her home to get her. When she finally arrived, master of ceremonies George Jessel
George Jessel (actor)
George Albert Jessel was an American illustrated song "model," actor, singer, songwriter, and Academy Award-winning movie producer. He was famous in his lifetime as a multitalented comedic entertainer, achieving a level of recognition that transcended his limited roles in movies...
, during the commotion, made the mistake of introducing Rainer, which Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
had been scheduled to do. She was also awarded the New York Film Critics' Award
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress
The New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress is one of the awards given by the New York Film Critics Circle to honor the finest achievements in filmmaking.-1930s:-1940s:-1950s:-1960s:-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...
for the role.
The Good Earth (1937)
Her next film was The Good EarthThe Good Earth (film)
The Good Earth is a film about Chinese farmers who struggle to survive. It was adapted by Talbot Jennings, Tess Slesinger, and Claudine West from the play by Donald Davis and Owen Davis, which was in itself based on the 1931 novel of the same name by Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S...
(1937), in which she co-starred with Paul Muni
Paul Muni
Paul Muni was an Austrian-Hungarian-born American stage and film actor...
. She was first rated the most likely choice for the female lead in the film adaption back in September 1935, and was cast two months later in November. The role was completely opposite her Anna Held character, where she now portrayed a humble Chinese
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
peasant. For the part, she acted utterly subservient to her husband, perpetually huddled in submission, and barely spoke a word of dialogue during the entire film. The extreme contrast in the role with her last one partly contributed to her winning another Oscar for Best Actress. She became the first actress to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat not matched until Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...
's two Oscar wins thirty years later. Film historian Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.-Career:Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S...
states that her "comparative muteness was reckoned as an astounding tour de force after her hysterically chattering telephone scene in The Great Ziegfeld".
Rainer later recalled that studio head Louis B. Mayer
Louis B. Mayer
Louis Burt Mayer born Lazar Meir was an American film producer. He is generally cited as the creator of the "star system" within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in its golden years. Known always as Louis B...
did not approve of the film being produced or her part in it: "He was horrified at Irving Thalberg
Irving Thalberg
Irving Grant Thalberg was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and his extraordinary ability to select the right scripts, choose the right actors, gather the best production staff and make very profitable films.-Life and...
's insistence for me to play O-lan, the poor uncomely little Chinese peasant. I myself, with the meager dialogue given to me, feared to be a hilarious bore." Rainer remembers Mayer's comments to Thalberg: "She has to be a dismal-looking slave and grow old; but Luise is a young girl; we just have made her glamorous — what are you doing?" She considers the part as one of the "greatest achievements" in her career, stating that she was allowed to express "realism," even refusing to "wear the rubber mask Chinese look suggested by the make-up department", allowing her to act "genuine, honest, and down-to-earth".
There were a number of serious problems during production, however. George W. Hill
George W. Hill
George William Hill was an American film director and cinematographer.-Career:He began his film career at age 13 as a stagehand with director D. W. Griffith...
, a leading director at the time, was chosen to direct the film, and spent several months in China filming backgrounds and atmospheric scenes of farmlands around the Great Wall and in Peking. Soon after he returned, Hill committed suicide, and the film was postponed until Sidney Franklin
Sidney Franklin (director)
Sidney Franklin was an American film director and producer. His brother Chester Franklin also became a director during the silent film era best known for helming the early Technicolor film Toll of the Sea....
took over directing.
Then, before the film was completed, the film's producer, Irving Thalberg
Irving Thalberg
Irving Grant Thalberg was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and his extraordinary ability to select the right scripts, choose the right actors, gather the best production staff and make very profitable films.-Life and...
, died suddenly at the age of 37. Rainer commented years later, "His dying was a terrible shock to us. He was young and ever so able. Had it not been that he died, I think I may have stayed much longer in films."
Rainer described winning the two Oscars as the "worst possible thing" to befall her career. In a 1938 interview, Rainer exclaimed that being awarded twice made her "work all the harder now to prove the Academy was right." The critic James Agate
James Agate
James Evershed Agate was a British diarist and critic. In the period between the wars, he was one of Britain's most influential theatre critics...
admired Rainer's performance in The Good Earth and described it as "an exquisite rendering", however she was criticised in reviews by Picturegoer
Picturegoer
Picturegoer was a magazine published in the United Kingdom between 1913 and 1960. Its primary focus was contemporary films and the performers who appeared in them....
. Max Breen was among those critics indignant that Greta Garbo's performance in Camille
Camille (1936 film)
Camille is an American romantic drama film directed by George Cukor and produced by Irving Thalberg and Bernard H. Hyman, from a screenplay by James Hilton, Zoe Akins and Frances Marion. The picture is based on the 1852 novel and play La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas, fils...
had been overlooked in favor of Rainer.
Other films
In late 1936, MGM conceived a script called Maiden Voyage especially for Rainer. The project was shelved and eventually released as Bridal Suite in 1939, starring Annabella as 'Luise'. Another 1936 film project never realized that Rainer was involved in was Adventure for Three, which would have co-starred William Powell. In 1938, she played Johann StraussJohann Strauss II
Johann Strauss II , also known as Johann Baptist Strauss or Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, or the Son , was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas...
's long-suffering wife Poldi in the successful Oscar-winning MGM musical biopic The Great Waltz
The Great Waltz (film)
The Great Waltz is a 1938 American biographical film based very loosely on the life of Johann Strauss II. It starred Luise Rainer, Fernand Gravet and Miliza Korjus. Rainer received top billing at the producer's insistence, but her role is comparatively minor as Strauss' wife, Poldi Volgelhuber...
, her last big hit.
Her four other films for MGM, The Emperor's Candlesticks
The Emperor's Candlesticks
The Emperor's Candlesticks is a historical novel by Baroness Orczy. Written soon after the birth of her son John, it is her first book as an author rather than translator and was a commercial failure...
(1937), Big City
Big City (1937 film)
Big City is a 1937 drama film directed by Frank Borzage. The film was also released as Skyscraper Wilderness.-Plot:Joe Benton and his wife Anna are suspects of starting a taxi war. Although they are innocent, they are blamed for everything that has happened and the officials demand for Anna to be...
(1937) with Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
, The Toy Wife
The Toy Wife
The Toy Wife is a 1938 drama film directed by Richard Thorpe. The period film was produced by Merian C. Cooper, written by Zoe Akins and had Luise Rainer and Melvyn Douglas in the leading roles.-Plot:...
(1938) and Dramatic School (1938), were ill-advised and not well received, though Rainer continued to receive praise. The Emperor's Candlesticks, in which Rainer was cast in November 1936, reunited Rainer with Powell for the final time. For the film, she wore a red wig and received costumes designed by Adrian
Adrian (costume designer)
Adrian Adolph Greenberg , most widely known as Adrian, was an American costume designer whose most famous costumes were for The Wizard of Oz and other Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films of the 1930s and 1940s. During his career, he designed costumes for over 250 films and his screen credits usually read as...
, who claimed that Rainer, by the end of 1937, would become one of most influential people in fashion of Hollywood. On set, she received star treatment, having her own dressing room, diction teacher, secretary, wardrobe woman, hairdresser and make-up artist. The Emperor's Candlesticks was Rainer's first film for which she received criticism, it being claimed that she did not improve in her acting technique.
Even though reviews were favourable of Rainer's performance in Big City, reviewers agreed that the actress was miscast in a 'modern role' and looked "too exotic" as Tracy's wife. Despite the criticism and announcements of leaving Hollywood, Rainer renewed her contract for seven years shortly after the film's release.
Most critics agreed Rainer was "at her most appealing" in The Toy Wife, in which she was cast in April 1938. The final MGM Rainer made was Dramatic School, in which she was cast in May 1938.
Rainer refused to be stereotyped or to knuckle under to the studio system and studio head Mayer was unsympathetic to her demands for serious roles. Furthermore, she began to fight for a higher salary and she was reported as being difficult and temperamental. Thereby, she missed out on several roles, including the female lead in the Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo...
gangster film The Last Gangster
The Last Gangster
The Last Gangster is a 1937 crime drama film, directed by Edward Ludwig and starring Edward G. Robinson, James Stewart and Rose Stradner.-Plot:...
(1937), in which another Viennese actress, Rose Stradner, replaced her. Speaking of Mayer decades later, Rainer recalled, "He said, 'We made you and we are going to destroy you.' Well, he tried his best."
Departure from Hollywood
Rainer made her final film appearance for MGM in 1938 and abandoned the film industry. In a 1983 interview, the actress told how she went to Louis B. Mayer's office and said to him: "Mr Mayer, I must stop making films. My source has dried up. I work from the inside out, and there is nothing inside to give." Following this altercation, she traveled to Europe, where she helped get aid to children who were victims of the Spanish Civil WarSpanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
. Nevertheless, she was not released from her contract and by 1940, she was still bound to make one more film for the studio. Disenchanted with Hollywood, where she later said it was impossible to have an intellectual conversation, she moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1940 to live with her husband, playwright Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, socialist, and social protester.-Early life:Odets was born in Philadelphia to Romanian- and Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Louis Odets and Esther Geisinger, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high...
, whom she had married in 1937. Rainer and Odets were divorced three years later. Rainer had never made it a secret that she felt terrible as Odets' wife, and exclaimed in a 1938 interview: "All the acting I've done on the stage or screen has been nothing compared to the acting I did in New York, when I tried to make everyone think I was happy – and my heart was breaking." She filed for divorce in mid-1938, but proceedings were delayed "to next October" when Odets fled to England. The divorce was finalized on May 14, 1940. Rainer and Odets
Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, socialist, and social protester.-Early life:Odets was born in Philadelphia to Romanian- and Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Louis Odets and Esther Geisinger, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high...
summered at Pine Brook Country Club
Pine Brook Country Club
-Introduction:Pine Brook Country Club began when Benjamin Plotkin purchased Pinewood Lake and the surrounding countryside on Mischa Hill in the historic village of Nichols, Connecticut. Plotkin built an auditorium with a revolving stage and forty rustic cabins and incorporated as the Pine Brook...
in Nichols, Connecticut
Nichols Farms Historic District
According to Stratford land records, Abraham Nichols purchased several old farms and large parcels of land in 1696. Nichols exchanged his land for of Lt. Joseph Judsons old farm which had a barn on it, or half the land owned by Jeremiah Judson, and of land from Benjamin Curtiss...
, where numerous other members of the Group Theatre (New York) also spent their summers, both acting and writing.
Despite the negativity, Rainer was one of the actresses considered for the role of Scarlett O'Hara
Scarlett O'Hara
Scarlett O' Hara is the protagonist in Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind and in the later film of the same name...
in Gone With the Wind
Gone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
(1939), but the idea was not well-received, and she was not given a screen test
Screen test
A screen test is a method of determining the suitability of an actor or actress for performing on film and/or in a particular role. The performer is generally given a scene, or selected lines and actions, and instructed to perform in front of a camera to see if they are suitable...
. In a later interview, Rainer commented on her disappearance in the movie industry by saying: "I was very young. There were a lot of things I was unprepared for. I was too honest, I talked serious instead of with my eyelashes and Hollywood thought I was cuckoo. I worked in seven big pictures in three years. I have to be inspired to give a good performance. I complained to a studio executive that the source was dried up. The executive told me, 'Why worry about the source. Let the director worry about that.' I didn't run away from anybody in Hollywood. I ran away from myself."
Later life and career
While in Europe, Rainer studied medicine and explained she loved being accepted as "just another student", rather than as the screen actress. Meanwhile, she also returned to the stage and made her first appearance at the Palace Theatre, ManchesterPalace Theatre, Manchester
The Palace Theatre, Manchester, is one of the main theatres in Manchester, England. It is situated on Oxford Street, on the north-east corner of the intersection with Whitworth Street. The Palace and its 'sister' theatre the Manchester Opera House on Quay Street are operated by the same parent...
on May 1, 1939 as Françoise in Jacques Deval's play Behold the Bride, and her first London appearance at the Shaftesbury Theatre
Shaftesbury Theatre
The Shaftesbury Theatre is a West End Theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the London Borough of Camden.-History:The theatre was designed for the brothers Walter and Frederick Melville by Bertie Crewe and opened on 26 December 1911 with a production of The Three Musketeers, as the New...
on May 23, 1939 in the same part. Returning to America, she made her first appearance on the New York stage at the Music Box Theatre
Music Box Theatre
The Music Box Theater is a Broadway theatre located at 239 West 45th Street in midtown-Manhattan.The once most aptly named theater on Broadway, the intimate Music Box was designed by architect C. Howard Crane and constructed by composer Irving Berlin and producer Sam H. Harris specifically to...
in May 1942 as Miss Thing in J. M. Barrie
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
's A Kiss for Cinderella.
In World War II, she signed a visa affidavit to get Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
out of Nazi Germany because she "loved his poetry". In return, he wrote the role of Grusha Vashnadze in his 1944 play The Caucasian Chalk Circle
The Caucasian Chalk Circle
The Caucasian Chalk Circle is a play by the German modernist playwright Bertolt Brecht. An example of Brecht's epic theatre, the play is a parable about a peasant girl who rescues a baby and becomes a better mother than its natural parents....
for Rainer. However they had a disagreement and she never played it.
She made one more film appearance in Hostages in 1943 and abandoned film making in 1944 after marrying publisher Robert Knittel. She initially did not plan on returning to the screen, but explained her comeback in 1943 by saying: "All the professor and the other students cared about was whether I could answer the questions, not whether I could come to class looking glamorous. But after that brief return to the stage, I began to realize that all the doors which had been opened to me in Europe, and all the work I had been able to accomplish for refugee children, was due to the fact that people knew me from my screen work. I began to feel a sense of responsibility to a job which I had started and never finished. When I also felt, after that experience at Dennis, that perhaps I did have talent after all, and that my too-sudden stardom was not just a matter of happy accident, I decided to go back."
When Rainer returned to Hollywood, her contract at MGM had long expired and she had no agent. David Rose, head of Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, offered her to star in an English film shot on location, but war conditions prevented her from accepting the role. Instead, Rose suggested her in 1942 to take a screen test for the lead role in For Whom the Bell Tolls
For Whom the Bell Tolls (film)
For Whom the Bell Tolls is a 1943 film in Technicolor based on the novel of the same name by Ernest Hemingway. It stars Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff and Katina Paxinou. This was Ingrid Bergman's first technicolor film. Hemingway handpicked Cooper and Bergman for their roles. The film...
(1943), but Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman
Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...
was cast. Rainer eventually settled on a role in the small film Hostages (1943) and told the press about the role: "It's certainly not an Academy Award part, and thank goodness, my bosses don't expect me to win an award with it. [..] No, this is something unspectacular but I hope, a step back in the right direction."
Rainer had become an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
citizen in the 1940s, but she and Knittel had lived in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Switzerland for most of their marriage. Robert Knitell died in 1989. They had one daughter, Francesca Knittel, now known as Francesca Knittel-Bowyer. Rainer now lives in Belgrave Square
Belgrave Square
Belgrave Square is one of the grandest and largest 19th century squares in London, England. It is the centrepiece of Belgravia, and was laid out by the property contractor Thomas Cubitt for the 2nd Earl Grosvenor, later the 1st Marquess of Westminster, in the 1820s. Most of the houses were occupied...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, in an apartment in the same building once inhabited by fellow two-time Oscar winner Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...
.
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
enticed her to play the cameo role of the writer Dolores in his 1960 Oscar-winning classic La Dolce Vita
La Dolce Vita
La Dolce Vita is a 1960 comedy-drama film written and directed by the critically acclaimed director Federico Fellini. The film is a story of a passive journalist's week in Rome, and his search for both happiness and love that will never come...
, to the point of her travelling to the Rome location. She quit the production prior to shooting, a fact attributed either to her resistance to an unwanted sex scene, or to her insistence on overseeing her own dialogue. The role was cut from the eventual screenplay.
Rainer made sporadic television and stage appearances following her and her husband's move to Britain, appearing in an episode of the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
television series Combat! in 1965. She took a dual role in a 1983 episode of The Love Boat
The Love Boat
The Love Boat is an American television series set on a cruise ship, which aired on the ABC Television Network from September 24,1977, until May 24,1986.The show starred Gavin MacLeod as the ship's captain...
. For the latter she received a standing ovation from the crew. She appeared in The Gambler
The Gambler (novel)
The Gambler is a short novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky about a young tutor in the employment of a formerly wealthy Russian general. The novella reflects Dostoyevsky's own addiction to roulette, which was in more ways than one the inspiration for the book: Dostoyevsky completed the novella under a...
(1997) in a small role, marking her film comeback at the age of 86. She made appearances at the 1998 and 2003 Academy Awards ceremonies as part of special retrospective tributes to past Oscar winners.
On 12 January 2010, Rainer celebrated her centenary
Centenarian
A centenarian is a person who is or lives beyond the age of 100 years. Because current average life expectancies across the world are less than 100, the term is invariably associated with longevity. Much rarer, a supercentenarian is a person who has lived to the age of 110 or more, something only...
in London. Actor Sir Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE is an English actor. He has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
was one of her guests. During that month, she was present at the British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
tribute to her at the National Film Theatre, where she was interviewed by Richard Stirling before screenings of The Good Earth and The Great Waltz. She also appeared onstage at the National Theatre
Royal National Theatre
The Royal National Theatre in London is one of the United Kingdom's two most prominent publicly funded theatre companies, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company...
, where she was interviewed by Sir Christopher Frayling
Christopher Frayling
Sir Christopher John Frayling is a British educationalist and writer, known for his study of popular culture.-Biography:Frayling read history at Churchill College, Cambridge and gained a PhD in the study of Jean-Jacques Rousseau...
. In April 2010 she returned to Hollywood to present a TCM
Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies is a movie-oriented cable television channel, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner, featuring commercial-free classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment and MGM, United Artists, RKO and Warner Bros. film libraries...
festival screening of The Good Earth.
Rainer has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 6300 Hollywood Boulevard.
On 24 February 2011, at the age of 101, she said in an interview to BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
that the Oscars were not as ostentatious as they are now. She also said that she saw the film The King's Speech
and found it "marvellous". She was sharp and full of wit and dignity.
On September 5, 2011, Rainer travelled to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Germany to receive a star on the "Boulevard der Stars". Her star was the twenty first issued in 2011 and followed twenty that were issued in 2010. The star was issued as an exception and not without controversy . Rainer had been forgotten when the Boulevard der Stars opened in 2010, despite being Germany's only Academy Award winning actress . In 2011 she was initially rejected by the jury (Senta Berger
Senta Berger
Senta Berger is an Austrian film, stage and television actress, producer and author.Regarded by critics as one of the greatest actresses of the post-war period, and frequently named as one of the leading German-speaking actresses in polls, Berger has received many award nominations for her acting...
, Gero Gandert, Uwe Kammann, Dieter Kosslick
Dieter Kosslick
Dieter Kosslick is the director of the Berlin International Film Festival . He has held this post since 1 May 2001 when he took over from Moritz de Hadeln....
& Hans Helmut Prinzler) despite being nominated . A prolonged campaign started in October 2010, led by music executive Paul DH Baylay, who noticed Rainer's omission on the Boulevard . Baylay campaigned in Germany, lobbying press and politicians to support the campaign to have the actress and her work recognised. The campaign was supported by The Central Council of Jews. In August 2011, The Boulevard der Stars, finally relented acknowledging the Facebook, email and letter campaign led by Baylay was key in their decision to awarding an extra star in favour of Rainer.
Filmography
| Title | Year | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sehnsucht 202 Sehnsucht 202 Sehnsucht 202 is a 1932 German musical comedy film directed by Max Neufeld and distributed by UFA. Sehnsucht 202 was Luise Rainer's film debut.-Plot:... |
1932 | Kitty | |
| Madame hat Besuch | 1932 | ||
| Heut' kommt's drauf an | 1933 | Marita Costa | |
| Escapade Escapade (1935 film) Escapade is a 1935 romantic comedy film starring William Powell and Luise Rainer. A philandering painter falls in love, but a prior affair with a married woman causes complications.-Cast:*William Powell as Fritz*Luise Rainer as Leopoldine Dur... |
1935 | Leopoldine Dur | |
| 1936 | Anna Held Anna Held Helene Anna Held was a Polish-born stage performer, most often associated with impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, her common-law husband. -Early life:... |
Academy Award for Best Actress Academy Award for Best Actress Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry... |
|
| 1937 | O-Lan | Academy Award for Best Actress | |
| 1937 | Countess Olga Mironova | ||
| Big City Big City (1937 film) Big City is a 1937 drama film directed by Frank Borzage. The film was also released as Skyscraper Wilderness.-Plot:Joe Benton and his wife Anna are suspects of starting a taxi war. Although they are innocent, they are blamed for everything that has happened and the officials demand for Anna to be... |
1937 | Anna Benton | |
| 1938 | Gilberte 'Frou Frou' Brigard | ||
| 1938 | Poldi Vogelhuber | ||
| Dramatic School | 1938 | Louise Mauban | |
| Hostages | 1943 | Milada Pressinger | |
| 1997 | Grandmother |