Luise Rainer Net Worth
Luise Rainer Net Worth is
$1.5 Million
Luise Rainer Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018
Luise Rainer is a retired German-born Austrian and American film actress. She was the first actor to win multiple Academy Awards and the first person to win them consecutively. She was discovered by American studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer talent scouts while acting on stage in A... | Full Name | Luise Rainer |
| Net Worth | $1.5 Million |
| Date Of Birth | January 12, 1910, Düsseldorf, Germany |
| Died | December 30, 2014, London, United Kingdom |
| Place Of Birth | Düsseldorf |
| Height | 5 ft 4 in (1.63 m) |
| Profession | Film actress |
| Nationality | Germany |
| Spouse | Robert Knittel (m. 1945–1989), Clifford Odets (m. 1937–1940) |
| Children | Francesca Knittel-Bowyer |
| Parents | Emilie Königsberger, Heinrich Rainer |
| Nicknames | Louise Rainer , The Viennese Teardrop |
| Awards | Academy Award for Best Actress |
| Movies | Escapade, The Great Ziegfeld, The Good Earth, Big City, The Emperor's Candlesticks, The Toy Wife, The Great Waltz, Dramatic School, Hostages, The Gambler, Sehnsucht 202 |
| TV Shows | MGM: When the Lion Roars |
| Star Sign | Capricorn |
| # | Quote |
|---|---|
| 1 | [on The Good Earth (1937)] I had a wonderful director, Sidney Franklin. I worked from inside out. It's not for me, putting on a face, or putting on makeup, or making masquerade. It has to come from inside out. I knew what I wanted to do and he let me do it. Hollywood was a very strange place. To me, it was like a huge hotel with a huge door, one of those rotunda doors. On one side people went in, heads high, and very soon they came out on the other side, heads hanging. |
| 2 | 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. |
| 3 | [on the bombing of Kosovo] How can you close your eyes and say this has nothing to do with me? I'm not speaking about politics. Politics is a terrible thing. Everyone wants power. |
| 4 | [on Ascension Island in 1944] On Christmas night, I danced with all kinds of fellows with pimples and all kinds of sores. I suddenly felt, 'What is this being shy? I have to give myself, I just felt I didn't want to be shy, I didn't want to draw away, but give myself, I mean, not physically, but be there. It was a great lesson also for me, this tour through Africa and Italy during the war. |
| 5 | In my day, making films was like working in a factory. You were a piece of machinery with no rights. |
| 6 | My acting was from the inside out. I don't believe in anything artificial. I don't believe in makeup. It has to come from you like a child you give birth to. That is how you act. |
| 7 | I'll tell you a wonderful story. Coming with all of these ideas that I had, and still have, and still feel because I never change and still believe in the same things. Soon after I was there in Hollywood, for some reason I was at a luncheon with Robert Taylor sitting next to me, and I asked him, 'Now, what are your ideas or what do you want to do,' and his answer was that he wanted to have 10 good suits to wear, elegant suits of all kinds, that was his idea. I practically fell under the table. |
| 8 | The secret of a long life is to never trust a doctor. |
| 9 | I was never proud of anything. I just did it like everything else. To do a film - let me explain to you - it's like having a baby. You labor, you labor, you labor, and then you have it. And then it grows up and it grows away from you. But to be proud of giving birth to a baby? Proud? No, every cow can do that. |
| 10 | I was nobody to make a pass to. I was very thin like a boy and I was very un-sexy. |
| 11 | I don't believe in acting. I think that people in life act, but when you are on the stage, or in my case also on screen, you have to be true. |
| 12 | [on her comeback role] It's certainly not an Academy Award part, and thank goodness, my bosses don't expect me to win an award with it. No, this is something unspectacular but I hope, a step back in the right direction. |
| 13 | [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. |
| 14 | [on quitting Hollywood] I was very young. There were a lot of things I was unprepared for. I was too honest, I talked serious instead of with my eyelashes and Hollywood thought I was cuckoo. I worked in seven big pictures in three years. I have to be inspired to give a good performance. I complained to a studio executive that the source was dried up. The executive told me, 'Why worry about the source. Let the director worry about that.' I didn't run away from anybody in Hollywood. I ran away from myself. |
| 15 | [on her first husband Clifford Odets] All the acting I've done on the stage or screen has been nothing compared to the acting I did in New York, when I tried to make everyone think I was happy - and my heart was breaking. |
| 16 | [on MGM chief Louis B. Mayer] He said, 'That girl is a Frankenstein, she's going to ruin our whole firm. We made you and we are going to destroy you.' Well, he tried his best. |
| 17 | I always considered myself the world's worst actress. |
| 18 | The Oscar is not a curse. The real curse is that once you have an Oscar they think you can do anything. |
| 19 | [2003, referring to her Academy Award win in 1937] No one in Europe had never heard of it. I didn't know what it was, it didn't mean anything to me. |
| 20 | [2003] It was not the thing that I strived for because, you see, today's Academy Award is - Oh God! The thing everyone longs for. |
| 21 | [to MGM chief Louis B. Mayer when she walked out on her contract] You are now 60 and I am 20. When I am 40, the age of a successful actress, you will be dead and I will live. |
| 22 | For my second and third pictures I won Academy Awards. Nothing worse could have happened to me. When I got two Oscars, they thought 'Oh, they can throw me into anything'. I was a machine, practically a tool in a big, big factory, and I could not do anything. And so I left. I just went away. I fled. Yes, I fled. |
| # | Fact |
|---|---|
| 1 | Delivered her daughter Francesca Knittel-Bowyer via Caesarean section. |
| 2 | 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 (1936)). The others are Claudette Colbert for It Happened One Night (1934), Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind (1939), Greer Garson for Mrs. Miniver (1942), Louise Fletcher for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Diane Keaton for Annie Hall (1977), Shirley MacLaine for Terms of Endearment (1983), Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Jodie Foster for The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Gwyneth Paltrow for Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Hilary Swank for Million Dollar Baby (2004). |
| 3 | 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 Rainer's first Academy Award. The next year, as a Chinese peasant in the Pearl Buck saga "The Good Earth" (1937), 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" (1938). "We made you and we're 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 Makk's "The Gambler" (1997), 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. |
| 4 | Her death at 104 make her the longest living recipient of a Academy Award for acting. |
| 5 | Was the 10th actress to receive an Academy Award; she won the Best Actress Oscar for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) at The 9th Academy Awards on March 4, 1937. |
| 6 | Grandmother to Luisa and Nicole, and great-grandmother to Luca and Hunter. |
| 7 | Currently lives in Eaton Square, London, in an apartment once occupied by Vivien Leigh. [2004] |
| 8 | Still lives in London. [January 2010] |
| 9 | On January 12th, 2010, Louise celebrated her 100th birthday. She is still fairly active and spry for her age. [January 2010] |
| 10 | 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. |
| 11 | Gave birth to her 1st child at age 36, a daughter Francesca Knittel-Bowyer on June 2, 1946. Child's father is her now late 2nd husband, Robert Knittel. |
| 12 | Gave her 1937 Best Actress Oscar for The Good Earth (1937) 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. |
| 13 | Was in consideration for the role of Maria in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) but Ingrid Bergman, who received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance, was cast instead. |
| 14 | The first multiple Oscar-winning actor or actress to reach the age of 100. Followed by Olivia de Havilland in 2016. |
| 15 | Considers her performance as O-Lan Ling in The Good Earth (1937) to be her finest on film. |
| 16 | She is the youngest person to ever win a second Oscar (aged 28, for The Good Earth (1937) ) beating Jodie Foster who was 29 years old when she won for The Silence of the Lambs (1991) . |
| 17 | As of 2014, at 104 years old, she was the oldest living Oscar winner. |
| 18 | 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 (1939) and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951); Helen Hayes for The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931) and Airport (1970); Kevin Spacey for The Usual Suspects (1995) and American Beauty (1999); Hilary Swank for Boys Don't Cry (1999) and Million Dollar Baby (2004); and Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django Unchained (2012). |
| 19 | Parents were Heinrich Rainer and his wife Emilie Königsberger. |
| 20 | Became a US citizen in the 1940s. |
| 21 | She is mentioned in the novel 'Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote . When discussing Holly Golightly's chances of making it the Hollywood agent O.J. Berman says, "If you mean future, you're wrong again. Now a couple of years back, out on the Coast, there was a time it could've been different. She had something working for her, she had them interested, she could've really rolled. But when you walk out on a thing like that, you don't 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 could've really rolled. I know, see, cause I'm the guy was giving her the push.". |
| 22 | One of two actresses born in Germany to win the Oscar; the other being Simone Signoret. |
| 23 | 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 (1936)). |
| 24 | 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 (1937). |
| 25 | 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 don't show up they'll think I'm dead!" both times. |
| 26 | Federico Fellini offered her a part in his 1960 film La Dolce Vita (1960), 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. |
| 27 | 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 (2003). |
| 28 | Was the first actor/actress to win back-to-back Acadamy Awards for her performances in The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937). 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. |
| 29 | Her second husband, Robert Knittel, was a New York publisher whom she married in 1945. They had one child, Francesca. |
| 30 | 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. |
| 31 | 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. |
| 32 | Was coaxed out of a 20-year retirement to appear on Combat!: Finest Hour (1965). |
Actress
| Title | Year | Status | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Gambler | 1997 | Grandmother | |
| A Dancer | 1991 | TV Movie | Anna |
| The Love Boat | 1984 | TV Series | Dorothy Fielding / Maggie Koerner |
| Combat! | 1965 | TV Series | Countess De Roy |
| BBC Sunday-Night Theatre | 1950-1957 | TV Series | Inga Arlberg / Nina |
| Der erste Kuß | 1954 | ||
| Suspense | 1954 | TV Series | |
| Lux Video Theatre | 1950-1953 | TV Series | Caroline / Mrs. Page |
| Schlitz Playhouse | 1952 | TV Series | Chambermaid |
| Faith Baldwin Romance Theatre | 1951 | TV Series | |
| By Candlelight | 1949 | TV Movie | Elizabeth |
| The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre | 1949 | TV Series | |
| Hostages | 1943 | Milada Pressinger | |
| Dramatic School | 1938 | Louise Mauban | |
| The Great Waltz | 1938 | Poldi Vogelhuber | |
| The Toy Wife | 1938 | Gilberte 'Frou Frou' Brigard | |
| Big City | 1937 | Anna Benton | |
| The Emperor's Candlesticks | 1937 | Countess Olga Mironova | |
| The Good Earth | 1937 | O-Lan | |
| The Great Ziegfeld | 1936 | Anna Held | |
| Escapade | 1935 | Leopoldine Dur | |
| Heut' kommt's drauf an | 1933 | Marita Costa | |
| Madame hat Besuch | 1932 | ||
| Sehnsucht 202 | 1932 | Kitty (as Louise Rainer) |
Soundtrack
| Title | Year | Status | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Great Ziegfeld | 1936 | performer: "Won't You Come and Play with Me", "It's Delightful to Be Married" 1907 - uncredited |
Thanks
| Title | Year | Status | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| TCM: Twenty Classic Moments | 2014 | TV Movie documentary special thanks | |
| Ziegfeld on Film | 2004 | Video documentary short special thanks |
Self
| Title | Year | Status | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brisant | 2011 | TV Series documentary | Herself |
| Prominent! | 2011 | TV Series | Herself |
| Luise Rainer: Live from the TCM Classic Film Festival | 2011 | TV Movie documentary | Herself |
| Noi che abbiamo fatto la dolce vita | 2009 | Documentary | Herself |
| American Masters | 2009 | TV Series documentary | Herself |
| Hollywood Chinese | 2007 | Documentary | Herself |
| Behind Poem | 2004 | Video documentary | Herself |
| Ziegfeld on Film | 2004 | Video documentary short | Herself / Anna Held ('The Great Ziegfeld') |
| Poem: I Set My Foot Upon the Air and It Carried Me | 2003 | Herself | |
| The 75th Annual Academy Awards | 2003 | TV Special | Herself - Past Winner |
| 75 Years of the Academy Awards: An Unofficial History | 2003 | TV Special documentary | Herself - Interviewee |
| Greta Garbo: A Lone Star | 2001 | TV Movie documentary | Herself (uncredited) |
| The South Bank Show | 2001 | TV Series documentary | Herself |
| Boulevard Bio | 1998 | TV Series | Herself |
| The 70th Annual Academy Awards | 1998 | TV Special | Herself - Past Winner (uncredited) |
| MGM: When the Lion Roars | 1992 | TV Mini-Series documentary | Herself |
| Happy 100th Birthday, Hollywood | 1987 | TV Special documentary | Herself |
| The 55th Annual Academy Awards | 1983 | TV Special | Herself - Co-Presenter: Best Foreign Language Film |
| Filmemigration aus Nazideutschland | 1975 | TV Series documentary | Himself |
| Girl Talk | 1965 | TV Series | Herself |
| The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson | 1964 | TV Series | Herself - Guest |
| The Ed Sullivan Show | 1949-1959 | TV Series | Herself / Herself - Actress |
| The 25th Annual Academy Awards | 1953 | TV Special | Herself - Presenter: Best Foreign Language Film |
| Another Romance of Celluloid | 1938 | Documentary short | Herself (uncredited) |
| Screen Snapshots Series 16, No. 8 | 1937 | Documentary short | Herself |
| The Candid Camera Story (Very Candid) of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures 1937 Convention | 1937 | Documentary short | Herself (uncredited) |
Archive Footage
| Title | Year | Status | Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| The 87th Annual Academy Awards | 2015 | TV Special | Herself - Actress (In Memoriam) |
| The 21st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards | 2015 | TV Special | Herself - In Memoriam |
| Imprescindibles | 2011 | TV Series | Herself |
| Protagonistas del recuerdo | 2006 | TV Series | Herself |
| La imagen de tu vida | 2006 | TV Series | Herself |
| Cinema mil | 2005 | TV Series | Herself |
| 80s | 2005 | TV Series documentary | Herself |
| Frank Capra's American Dream | 1997 | TV Movie documentary | Herself |
| That's Entertainment! III | 1994 | Documentary | Performer in Clip from 'The Great Ziegfeld' (uncredited) |
| The Ed Sullivan Show | 1958-1959 | TV Series | Herself - Interviewee / Herself |
| Some of the Best | 1943 | Documentary | Anna Held in The Great Ziegfeld / O-Lan in The Good Earth (uncredited) |
| Cavalcade of the Academy Awards | 1940 | Documentary short | |
| Land of Liberty | 1939 | ||
| The Romance of Celluloid | 1937 | Short | Anna Benton |
Won Awards
| Year | Award | Ceremony | Nomination | Movie |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1960 | Star on the Walk of Fame | Walk of Fame | Motion Picture | On 8 February 1960. At 6300 Hollywood Blvd. |
| 1938 | Oscar | Academy Awards, USA | Best Actress in a Leading Role | The Good Earth (1937) |
| 1937 | Oscar | Academy Awards, USA | Best Actress in a Leading Role | The Great Ziegfeld (1936) |
| 1937 | NYFCC Award | New York Film Critics Circle Awards | Best Actress | The Great Ziegfeld (1936) |
Known for movies
The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
as Anna Held
The Good Earth (1937)
as O-Lan
The Great Waltz (1938)
as Poldi Vogelhuber
Big City (1937)
as Anna Benton