Luise Rainer

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Luise Rainer in a portrait by Carl van Vechten (1937)

Luise Rainer (born January 12, 1910 in Düsseldorf , † December 30, 2014 in Belgravia , United Kingdom ) was a German actress . Her career began in 1928; initially she played with Max Reinhardt in Vienna, among others . In 1935 she accepted an offer for a seven-year contract with MGM and moved to the United States , where she quickly became popular.

In 1937 she won an Oscar for best leading actress in the film The Great Ziegfeld , in 1938 another in the same category for the leading role in the film The Good Earth . Her Hollywood career ended in 1938 after an argument with MGM's Louis B. Mayer . To this day, Luise Rainer is the only German actress to win Oscars. In the context of the Second World War , she was heavily involved in the USA for the flight of Jews from their homeland, which was ruled by the National Socialists .

life and work

Early life and beginnings as an actress

Luise Rainer was born into a Jewish family as the daughter of the businessman Heinrich Rainer and his wife Emilie. During her childhood she moved to Hamburg and later to Vienna . She had two brothers. She became interested in show business at an early age and was considered very sporty. Rainer later described her father as "tyrannical" and "possessive", while she described her mother, a pianist, as "loving" but very dependent on her father. Luise Rainer returned to her hometown Düsseldorf under a pretext and trained there between 1927 and 1928 as a theater actress at the Hochschule für Bühnenkunst, which was attached to the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus by Louise Dumont and Gustav Lindemann . Her father was against working as an actress and called her a "whore". She had her first engagement from 1928 to 1931 at the Schauspielhaus in Düsseldorf. In the following years Rainer made her first films, including 1932 Sehnsucht 202 and Madame has a visitor , and was engaged by Max Reinhardt for the Vienna Theater in der Josefstadt .

Short career in Hollywood

After a talent scout in the service of Hollywood in Vienna became aware of Rainer, Louis B. Mayer signed her for MGM in 1935. Because the American public had reservations about German artists because of the events in Nazi Germany, MGM launched Rainer as an Austrian. She was marketed as the new Greta Garbo ; Mayer then used the same method with Hedwig Kiesler, whom he renamed Hedy Lamarr .

Luise Rainer had her first Hollywood role in 1935 at the side of William Powell in Escapade after Myrna Loy went on strike for more money and turned down the role. In addition to Powell, the Rainer acted in two other films. Even with her second role as Anna Held in the lavishly produced musical The Great Ziegfeld from 1936, she received the Oscar for best leading actress . The scene in which Anna Held, newly divorced from Ziegfeld, congratulated Ziegfeld on the phone on his new wedding, hiding her tears behind a smile, became famous. She became the only German actress to ever win an Oscar. Such dramatic scenes subsequently became a trademark of Rainer, who also won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for their portrayal . Because of her emotionally charged film appearances, she even got the nickname “the Viennese teardrop” - “the Viennese Teardrop”. In 1937 Rainer was employed in Die Gute Erde as a Chinese farmer who experienced famine and revolution and sacrificed herself for her husband and family. The role of O-Lan had little text, but Luise Rainer won over the critics with facial expressions and gestures, which earned her an Oscar for the second time, again as best actress. Incidentally, the camera was used in the film of Karl Freund, who emigrated from Germany in 1929 and was very prominent .

To this day, Rainer is the only German actress to win an Oscar for best leading actress. And there was a second one. This made her the first person ever to win two acting oscars (a year before Spencer Tracy , who got his second Oscar in 1938). She herself saw her two Oscars as a curse, as they would have raised excessive expectations in the studio and audience that she could never have met. She used one of her Oscars as a doorstop and gave it to a furniture maker when she moved to London - but she later ordered a replacement from the Academy for the Oscar she gave away.

Rainer then played leading roles in expensive productions such as Dramatic School and The Great Waltz , but many of her films were only moderately successful with audiences. In late 1937 she canceled her current contract and left Hollywood. In the studio, the actress was considered difficult because she demanded better and more diverse types of roles. In addition, her then husband Clifford Odets is said to have regularly talked into career planning. Studio boss Louis B. Mayer called after her when she quit: “We created you, we will destroy you!” To which Rainer allegedly replied: “God created me - in 20 years you will be dead, but I will be a famous actress . "

Next life

Together with Albert Einstein, Rainer was heavily involved in the escape of Jews from National Socialist Germany. She also helped Bertolt Brecht escape Germany. On March 10, 1940, she had a great theatrical success in George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan at the Belasco Theater in Washington, DC . The director was the German émigré Erwin Piscator , who had not worked in the theater since leaving Germany in 1931 and was working towards founding a US national theater in Washington at the time. She made her last film in the USA in 1943 and then moved back to Europe, where she lived in Switzerland and Great Britain until her death. Plans for a comeback came to nothing. Federico Fellini wanted to use the actress in The Sweet Life . When Rainer found out that she was supposed to be filming a bed scene with Marcello Mastroianni , she rushed to leave Rome from filming. After that, the actress retired and returned to the silver screen for only two guest appearances. In 1997 Rainer was seen as the grandmother in The Player by Károly Makk based on the novel of the same name by Fyodor Dostojewski . A year later, on June 16, 1998, Luise Rainer returned for the first time in front of a German camera after an absence of more than six decades and was the star guest on Alfred Biolek's late-night talk show Boulevard Bio .

Rainer was married to the publisher Robert Knittel, the son of the Swiss writer John Knittel . Her daughter Francesca Knittel Bowyer is an actress and writer.

Luise Rainer at her introduction on the Boulevard der Stars in Berlin 2011.

Rainer made two more trips to Los Angeles for an Academy Awards : in 1998 and 2003. She was also honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame , at 6300 Hollywood Boulevard. On September 5, 2011, Rainer traveled to Berlin to receive a star on the Boulevard der Stars. Her star was the 21st awarded in 2011 after a total of 20 stars were awarded in 2010. The star was given as an exception, and not without controversy. Rainer was forgotten at the opening of the Boulevard der Stars in 2010, even though she was the only German actress to win the Academy Awards. In 2011 it was rejected by the jury ( Senta Berger , Gero Gandert , Uwe Kammann, Dieter Kosslick and Hans Helmut Prinzler ) despite being nominated .

In October 2010 a campaign started, led by music manager Paul DH Baylay, who noted Rainer's omission on the boulevard. Baylay initiated the campaign in Germany and called on the press and politicians to draw attention to the actress and her work. The campaign was supported by the Central Council of Jews . In August 2011, after campaigns on Facebook, email and letters, led by Baylay, who was a key figure in this decision, the Boulevard of Stars finally gave in and awarded Rainer the additional star. In October 2014, she overtook Margaret Booth as the longest-lived Oscar winner in history.

Rainer died on December 30, 2014 at the age of 104 in London of complications from pneumonia .

Filmography

movie theater

watch TV

  • 1949: The Chevrolet Tele-Theater (one episode)
  • 1951: Faith Baldwin Romance Theater (one episode)
  • 1952: Schlitz Playhouse of Stars (one episode)
  • 1950, 1953: Lux Video Theater (two episodes)
  • 1954: Suspense (one episode)
  • 1965: Combat! (an episode)
  • 1984: Love Boat (an episode)
  • 1998: Boulevard Bio (star guest on the ARD talk show)

Awards

Rainer and Klaus Wowereit cut the golden ribbon of the Boulevard of Stars (2011)

literature

  • Antje Kahnt: Düsseldorf's strong women - 30 portraits Droste, Düsseldorf 2016, ISBN 978-3-7700-1577-1 , pp. 115–120.
  • Marten Rolff in conversation with Luise Rainer: The last goddess. In: SZ of July 23, 2009.
  • Judith Prokasky: Luise Rainer. Expression and claim. Appearances of an actress. In: Filmblatt , Volume 12, Issue 33, Spring 2007, pp. 4-18.
  • Judith Prokasky: Too German for Hollywood? The actress Luise Rainer . In: Home and Exile. Emigration of German Jews after 1933 . Exhibition catalog Jewish Museum Berlin / House of History of the FRG . Jüdischer Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 2006, pp. 212-217, ISBN 978-3-633-54222-2 .

Web links

Commons : Luise Rainer  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Peter-Philipp Schmitt: Oscar winner Luise Rainer - Germany has the superstar. In: faz.net. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , February 23, 2008, accessed on October 25, 2015.
  2. ^ Luise Rainer Dies at 104; Won Best Actress Oscars for Two Years Running . ( nytimes.com [accessed August 22, 2018]).
  3. ↑ WORLD: Hollywood diva Luise Rainer died at the age of 104 . In: THE WORLD . December 30, 2014 ( welt.de [accessed on August 22, 2018]).
  4. ^ Obituary for Luise Rainer at the Tagesschau by Stephanie Pieper ( Memento from December 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ Biography on their homepage ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.francescaknittelbowyer.com
  6. ↑ a b Boulevard der Stars: Why is the only German Oscar winner missing? , Jewish General. December 23, 2010. Archived from the original on November 5, 2018 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved April 28, 2019. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.juedische-allgemeine.de 
  7. ^ Boulevard der Stars: And The Oscar Goes To: Luise Rainer . December 13, 2010. 
  8. ↑ Local Reader helps film legend Luise Rainer get spot on Boulevard der Stars . 
  9. ↑ Oscar-winner Louise Rainer died at the age of 104. In: musikexpress.de. Musikexpress , December 30, 2014, accessed December 30, 2014.
  10. ↑ Mourning the German Hollywood legend. ( Memento from December 30, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: tagesschau.de , December 30, 2014, accessed on December 30, 2014.
  11. ↑ Image  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on t-online.de .@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.t-online.de  
  12. ↑ But a star for our Oscar star. , In: express.de , accessed September 8, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Rainer, Luise
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actress
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Düsseldorf , German Empire
DATE OF DEATH December 30, 2014
Place of death London , England , UK