RAINER, LUISE

RAINER, LUISE (1910 – ), German actress. Born in Dusseldorf, Germany, into a prosperous Jewish family, Rainer began her career in 1928. She later joined Max Reinhardt's company in Vienna, Austria. As part of his company, Rainer became a popular stage actress in Berlin and Vienna in the early 1930s, appearing in such plays as Saint Joan and Six Characters in Search of an Author. In 1935 she went to Hollywood and became famous for her performance in the films Escapade (1935); The Great Ziegfeld (Oscar for Best Actress, 1936); and The Good Earth (Oscar for Best Actress, 1937). These were followed by less notable roles in The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937); The Big City (1937); The Toy Wife (1938); The Great Waltz (1938); Dramatic School (1938); and Hostages (1943). Ultimately disillusioned with the superficial quality of Hollywood and frustrated at not being able to attain the more substantial roles, Rainer retired from the screen in 1929. She made a brief comeback decades later when she starred in the Swiss TV movie A Dancer (1988) and appeared in the Hungarian film The Gambler (1997), based on the story by Dostoievsky; and the German film Poem: I Set My Foot upon the Air and It Carried Me (2003). Amassing a string of "firsts" to her credit, Rainer was the first actor/actress to achieve the perfect Oscar track record of two nominations, two wins; she was the first to receive double Oscars consecutively; she was the first to obtain two Oscars before turning 30; she was the first (and as of 2005 the only) German actress to win an Academy Award; and she was the first actress to win an Academy Award for portraying a real-life person – Anna Held in the biopic The Great Ziegfeld. Her first role on the English stage was in Behold the Bride (London, 1939. and, on the New York stage, A Kiss for Cinderella (1942), followed by The Lady from the Sea (1950). clifford odets , the playwright, was her first husband; they were married from 1937 to 1940. Rainer wed publisher Robert Knittel in 1944, to whom she remained married until his death in 1989. (Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)