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Luise Rainer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Luise Rainer (born 12 January 1910) was 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, even with Greta Garbo as one of the nominees. However, she would later remark that by winning two consecutive Oscars, "nothing worse could have happened to me,"[citation needed] 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. Description above from the Wikipedia article Luise Rainer, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia


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Born:
Jan 12, 1910 In Düsseldorf, Germany
Movie/TV Credits:
28
First Appeared:
In the movie Sehnsucht 202 1932-09-08
Latest Project:
Movie Hollywood Chinese 2007-03-18
Known For
Poster of Poem: I Set My Foot Upon the Air and It Carried Me
Poster of The Emperor's Candlesticks
Poster of Escapade
Filmography
Movie Hollywood Chinese Self 2007-03-18
Movie Ziegfeld on Film Herself (interviewee, and in clips from The Great Ziegfeld) 2004-11-07
Movie Poem: I Set My Foot Upon the Air and It Carried Me 2003-05-07
Movie Frank Capra's American Dream Self (archive footage) 1997-01-01
Movie The Gambler Grandmother 1997-10-30
Movie That's Entertainment! III (archive footage) 1994-07-01
Movie A Dancer Anna 1991-08-11
Series The Love Boat Dorothy Fielding 1977-09-24
Series Combat! Unknown 1962-10-02
Movie Der erste Kuß 1954-07-19
Series Lux Video Theatre Unknown 1950-10-02
Series Suspense Unknown 1949-01-06
Series The Ed Sullivan Show Unknown 1948-06-20
Series The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre Unknown 1948-09-27
Movie Hostages Milada Pressinger 1943-08-11
Movie Cavalcade of the Academy Awards Self (archive footage) 1940-07-31
Movie The Toy Wife Gilberte 'Frou Frou' Brigard 1938-06-10
Movie Dramatic School Louise Mauban 1938-12-09
Movie The Great Waltz Poldi Vogelhuber 1938-11-04
Movie The Emperor's Candlesticks Countess Olga Mironova 1937-07-02
Movie The Good Earth O-Lan 1937-06-02
Movie The Romance of Celluloid Self (archive footage) 1937-08-27
Movie Big City Anna Benton 1937-09-03
Movie The Great Ziegfeld Anna Held 1936-04-08
Movie Escapade Leopoldine Dur 1935-07-05
Movie Heut' kommt's drauf an Marita Costa 1933-03-17
Movie Sehnsucht 202 Kitty 1932-09-08
Movie Madame has a visitor 1932-09-30
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