Luise Rainer, the first thespian to win back-to-back Oscars, was born on January 12, 1910 in Dusseldorf, Germany, into a prosperous Jewish family. Her parents were Emilie , one of the founding members of Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio. The play was a flop, running just 16 performances. "I was living in America and was on the stage there - sporadically. I always lived more than I worked. Which doesn't mean that I do not love my profession and every moment I was in it gave me great satisfaction and happiness." Rainer has no regrets over not becoming the star she might have been. She outlived all of the legendary stars of her era, which likely is the best revenge for the loss of her career after bidding adieu to a company town she could not abide.
Was coaxed out of a 20-year retirement to appear on "Combat!" {Finest Hour (#4.15)} .
A non-conformist to the MGM star-system, she used to parade around Hollywood untidily dressed, usually with no make-up and wearing pants. Her non-conformist style of behavior cost Ms. Rainer her contract with MGM in the late 30s.
Was forced to attend the Oscar ceremony by Louis B. Mayer to receive her Oscar. In the early Academy Awards ceremonies the winners were announced beforehand in the newspapers. A team of MGM staff arrived at her house and made her dress in appropriate evening wear, and rushed her to the show - just in time.
Her second husband, Robert Knittel, was a New York publisher whom she married in 1945. They had one child, Francesca.
Was the first actor/actress to win back-to-back Acadamy Awards for her performances in The Great Ziegfeld and The Good Earth . She was also the first actor/actress to win two Academy Awards. The following year, 1938, Spencer Tracy , Bette Davis and Walter Brennan also became double Oscar winners.
Attended the 75th Academy Awards and appeared in the Oscar winner tribute sequence introduced by Olivia de Havilland. Was the most senior member of the Oscar Tribute sequence at the The 75th Annual Academy Awards .
Federico Fellini offered her a part in his 1960 film La dolce vita , and a scene was written specifically for her. She was not happy with the character, however, and asked for rewrites to be done. Ultimately Fellini abandoned the idea due to these demands, much to her chagrin.
When the Academy decided to bring back past Oscar winners in 1997 and 2002 for their Oscar Family Album, despite frail health, Ms. Rainer happily agreed to travel from London to Hollywood to attend both ceremonies. She remarked "If I dont show up theyll think Im dead!" both times.
Of all the living winners of a competitive Oscar she has had hers the longest (as of 2013) - 77 years. She last won in 1937 for The Good Earth .
She shares the honor of having several firsts with the Academy Awards. She was the first actor to achieve the perfect Oscar track record (two nominations-two wins). She was the first actor to receive double Oscars consecutively. She was the first to obtain two Oscars and was the first to achieve double Oscars before turning 30. She was the first actress to win an Academy Award for portraying a real-life person ( The Great Ziegfeld ).
One of two actresses born in Germany to win the Oscar; the other being Simone Signoret.
She is mentioned in the novel Breakfast at Tiffanys by Truman Capote. When discussing Holly Golightlys chances of making it the Hollywood agent O.J. Berman says, "If you mean future, youre wrong again. Now a couple of years back, out on the Coast, there was a time it couldve been different. She had something working for her, she had them interested, she couldve really rolled. But when you walk out on a thing like that, you dont walk back. Ask Luise Rainer. And Rainer was a star. Sure, Holly was no star; she never got out of the still department. But that was before The Story of Dr. Wassell. Then she couldve really rolled. I know, see, cause Im the guy was giving her the push.".
Became a US citizen in the 1940s.
Parents were Heinrich Rainer and his wife Emilie Knigsberger.
As of 2013, she is only one of 6 actors who have a 2-0 winning record when nominated for an acting Oscar. The others are Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind and A Streetcar Named Desire ; Helen Hayes for The Sin of Madelon Claudet and Airport ; Kevin Spacey for The Usual Suspects and American Beauty ; Hilary Swank for Boys Dont Cry and Million Dollar Baby ; and Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained .
As of 2014, at 104 years old, she was the oldest living Oscar winner.
She is the youngest person to ever win a second Oscar (aged 28, for The Good Earth ) beating Jodie Foster who was 29 years old when she won for The Silence of the Lambs .
Considers her performance as O-Lan Ling in The Good Earth to be her finest on film.
The first multiple Oscar-winning actor or actress to reach the age of 100. Followed by Olivia de Havilland in 2016.
Was in consideration for the role of Maria in For Whom the Bell Tolls but Ingrid Bergman , who received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance, was cast instead.
Gave her 1937 Best Actress Oscar for The Good Earth to removal men who helped her relocate from Switzerland to London in 1989; she had been using the award as a doorstep for years and it was bent out of shape.
Gave birth to her 1st child at age 36, a daughter Francesca Knittel-Bowyer on June 2, 1946. Childs father is her now late 2nd husband, Robert Knittel.
Returned to work 14 months after giving birth to her daughter Francesca Knittel-Bowyer to begin performing in the US tour of "Joan of Lorraine", replacing Ingrid Bergman in the title role.
(January 2010) On January 12th, 2010, Louise celebrated her 100th birthday. She is still fairly active and spry for her age.
(January 2010) Still lives in London.
Currently lives in Eaton Square, London, in an apartment once occupied by Vivien Leigh.
Grandmother to Luisa and Nicole, and great-grandmother to Luca and Hunter.
Was the 10th actress to receive an Academy Award; she won the Best Actress Oscar for The Great Ziegfeld at The 9th Academy Awards on March 4, 1937.
Her death at 104 make her the longest living recipient of a Academy Award for acting.
With her soulful eyes, luminous beauty and an emotional intensity that melted hearts, Luise Rainer was well on her way to becoming a queen of Hollywood after only a handful of movies in the 1930s. Her wrenching performance in the 1936 feature film "The Great Ziegfeld" -- memorable for the telephone scene in which her character smiles through tears to congratulate ex-husband Flo Ziegfeld on his remarriage -- brought Rainers first Academy Award. The next year, as a Chinese peasant in the Pearl Buck saga "The Good Earth" , she won again, becoming at age 28 the first actor to win back-to-back Oscars. But Rainer was not a conventional star. She refused to wear glamorous clothes or makeup. She disparaged Hollywood people, preferring the company of George Gershwin, Thomas Mann, Frank Lloyd Wright, Albert Einstein and other intellectuals and artists. And she clashed with studio boss Louis B. Mayer over her roles. She wanted to play substantial women, like Madame Curie. Mayer put her in "The Toy Wife". "We made you and were going to kill you," Mayer warned the German-born actress after a particularly bitter confrontation. He quickly made good on his threat, ruining her career so completely that, as film historian David Thomson later wrote, her two Oscar statuettes "might have been voodoo dolls". Rainer, whose meteoric rise and rapid descent mystified movie fans for decades. She made only a half-dozen movies before turning her back on Hollywood -- leaving her troubled marriage to left-wing playwright Clifford Odets. She appeared only occasionally on stage and in television and film over the next decades. In her final movie role, Rainer played a grandmother in Karoly Makks "The Gambler" , based on the Dostoevsky novel, for which she was widely praised. But she mostly lived a quiet life in Europe with British publisher Robert Knittel, whom she married in 1945. Knitted died in 1989.
Is one of 11 actresses who won the Best Actress Oscar for a move that also won the Best Picture Oscar (she won for The Great Ziegfeld ). The others are Claudette Colbert for It Happened One Night , Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind , Greer Garson for Mrs. Miniver , Louise Fletcher for One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest , Diane Keaton for Annie Hall , Shirley MacLaine for Terms of Endearment , Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy , Jodie Foster for The Silence of the Lambs , Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love and Hilary Swank for Million Dollar Baby .
Delivered her daughter Francesca Knittel-Bowyer via Caesarean section.
Is one of 5 actresses to have won an Oscar for a movie where they acted out a labor, Rainers being for The Good Earth . The others are Mary Astor for The Great Lie , Jane Wyman for Johnny Belinda , Kim Hunter for A Streetcar Named Desire and Brenda Fricker for My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown .
Is one of 16 actresses to have received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for a performance where they acted out a labor and/or birth; hers being for The Good Earth . The others in chronological order are Jane Wyman for Johnny Belinda , Eleanor Parker for Caged , Elizabeth Taylor for Raintree County , Leslie Caron for The L-Shaped Room , Shirley MacLaine for Irma la Douce , Vanessa Redgrave for Isadora , Genevive Bujold for Anne of the Thousand Days , Marsha Mason for Cinderella Liberty , Ann-Margret for Tommy , Ellen Burstyn for Same Time, Next Year , Jessica Lange for Sweet Dreams , Meryl Streep for Evil Angels , Samantha Morton for In America , Ellen Page for Juno , and Gabourey Sidibe for Precious (2009/II) .
Is one of 12 actresses who won the Best Actress Oscar for playing a character who is pregnant at some point during the film; hers being for The Good Earth . The others are Helen Hayes for The Sin of Madelon Claudet , Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind , Ginger Rogers for Kitty Foyle , Olivia de Havilland for To Each His Own , Jane Wyman for Johnny Belinda , Anna Magnani for The Rose Tattoo , Julie Christie for Darling , Barbra Streisand for Funny Girl , Liza Minnelli for Cabaret , Sissy Spacek for Coal Miners Daughter and Frances McDormand for Fargo .
The Oscar is not a curse. The real curse is that once you have an Oscar,they think you can do anything.
[on her comeback] 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.
I was nobody to make a pass to. I was very thin like a boy and I was,very un-sexy.
The secret of a long life is to never trust a doctor.
In my day, making films was like working in a factory. You were a piece,of machinery with no rights.
My greatest regret is that I have not given out much, much more, because,inside me there is much, much more that I would have liked to give. It,sounds arrogant, but it is the truth: I do not feel I have given out,even part of what I can give out.
The secret of a long life is to never trust a doctor.
I have never had a current state of mind. My mind changes a great deal. I am very affected by any sorrow or sad thing, and I am very affected by joy and beauty. .
