Louis Rainer

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Louis Rainer , also Luis Rainer (* August 2, 1885 as Alois Rainer in Brixen , Tyrol , Austria-Hungary , today South Tyrol , Italy ; † March 19, 1963 in Montagnola , Ticino , Switzerland ) was an actor of Austrian origin.

Life

Louis Rainer appeared in the theater even before the First World War and played in Zurich , among other places . Immediately after the war he moved to the Deutsches Theater in Berlin under the direction of Max Reinhardt . In the remaining 20s, Rainer performed in Salzburg , Vienna , Wiesbaden , Düsseldorf ( Schauspielhaus ) and again in Berlin ( Renaissance theater ) . Since 1929, Rainer, who has now modernized his first name to "Luis", has found it exclusively at the Dresden Schauspielhaus . There one of his early successful roles in 1930 was The Fool in William Shakespeare's What You Want . The artist spent the Second World War at the Prussian State Theaters under the direction of Gustaf Gründgens . After 1943 Rainer found no more engagement.

Rainer's star role on stage was Death in Jedermann , which he played several times in the 20s and 30s as partner of Alexander Moissi (in the title role) at the Salzburg Festival .

Between the mid-1930s and the end of the Second World War, Luis Rainer was also offered sporadic film roles, beginning with the part of Franz Liszt in Carmine Gallone's musical comedy If the music weren't there . These were mostly larger supporting roles such as the old shepherd Nando, whom he played in Leni Riefenstahl's opera film adaptation Tiefland .

After the war, Luis Rainer settled in Switzerland . There you could him for the last time in 1957 on screen when he in the drama The May 10 by Franz Schnyder embodied an old, illegal immigrants entering Switzerland German refugee who is discharged at a ticket window of the Swiss rail by a border policeman when he cannot pay in francs.

Problems in the Third Reich

Rainer's marriage to a Jewish woman and his foreign nationality - as a native of South Tyrol, he automatically became an Italian citizen after 1918 - caused the artist considerable problems from 1933 onwards. Although he had been a member of the Reichstheaterkammer since 1933 , after his debut as a film actor in 1935 he wanted to be accepted into the Reichsfilmkammer . As a foreigner, he was subject to the so-called 'contingent obligation' introduced by the National Socialists, with which the aim was to keep the number of foreign film artists in National Socialist Germany small. On the one hand, he was not denied admission to the Chamber, but on the other hand he was hardly given any roles. The marriage to a 'full Jew' according to the National Socialist race laws meant that from 1937 (until 1939) Rainer even needed a special permit for his theater work in Dresden.

As the state pressure on him grew, Rainer bowed to it in two ways: In 1941 he gave up his Italian citizenship and instead took on German. And the following year he divorced his Jewish wife. As a result, in May 1943, Rainer received the notification that nothing would now stand in the way of "regular membership in the Reichstheaterkammer".

Filmography (complete)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Date and place of birth according to the film archive Kay Less
  2. ↑ Date and place of death according to Piet Hein Honig, Hanns-Georg Rodek : 100001. The show business encyclopedia of the 20th century. Showbiz-Data-Verlag, Villingen-Schwenningen 1992, ISBN 3-929009-01-5 .
  3. ↑ On this complex, cf. communications from the P. Walter Jacob Archive of the Hamburg Office for German Exile Literature ( Memento of March 18, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Contrary to the assertion of numerous publications, Rainer did not appear in the film The Great King . The role of the French General Laudon ascribed to him was played by Walter Franck . See Ulrich J. Klaus: Deutsche Tonfilme, Volume 12 1942/43, p. 51, Berlin 2001
personal data
SURNAME Rainer, Louis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rainer, Luis; Rainer, Alois (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian-Italian-German actor
DATE OF BIRTH August 2, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Brixen , Tyrol, Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1963
Place of death Montagnola , Ticino, Switzerland