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Born in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1797 to a Jewish family, Heine was sent to Hamburg as a young man to work for his rich uncle. He studied at the universities at Bonn, Berlin and Göttingen, and got a law degree in 1825; he also changed his name to Heinrich Heine to ease his integration into German society. In 1821 he published his poem "Gedichte", but after a spat with another poet damaged his reputation, he moved to Paris to be a journalist. There he met an illiterate shopgirl named Crecence Eugénie Mirat, whom he married in 1841. Heine's criticism of Germany won him censorship from his native land, and he retired permanently to France.
He died in Paris on February 17 1856. Heine was controversial in Germany, and because of his Jewish origins, his poems had to be marked as 'author unknown' under the Nazi regime. He influenced many poets and composers, including Rainer Maria Rilke, Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Schubert, Karl Marx, and Robert Schumann.- Writer
- Actor
- Director
Hanns Heinz Ewers (born November 3, 1871 in Düsseldorf, Germany) was a German writer famous for his short stories and novels that expanded the parameters of the horror genre. He began his literary career as a poet when he published "A Book of Fables", satirical verses, in 1901. In addition to writing, he was an actor and created a vaudeville theater the same year he made his literary debut. He also founded another acting company that toured Central and Eastern Europe, but he abandoned the theater due to censorship.
It was his stories about the occult and horror that made his name. His first novel "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" was published in 1910 and his masterpiece, "Alarune", in 1911. The two novels were part of a trilogy based on the autobiographical character of Frank Braun, who also appears in the 1921 novel "Vampyr".
Ewers was deeply attracted to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, and the Nietzschean philosophy of the "intellectuals" of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, as well as their nationalism (to say nothing of their mysticism) attracted him to the Nazi Party, though he never joined it. Though he wrote a novel based on the life of Nazi martyr Horst Wessel, allegedly at the bequest of Adolf Hitler, his works were banned by the Nazis in 1934.
A penniless Hanns Heinz Ewers died from tuberculosis on June 12, 1943 in Berlin. He was 72 years old.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Karl Heiland was born on 10 July 1876 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for Rebellenliebe (1919), Hapura, die tote Stadt - 2. Teil: Der Streit um die Ruinen (1922) and Der Schatz der Azteken (1921). He died on 10 October 1932 in Berlin, Germany.- Wilhelm Millowitsch Sr. was born on 24 January 1880 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Wilhelm was a writer, known for Im Nachtjackenviertel (1961). Wilhelm was married to Käthe Planck. Wilhelm died on 14 January 1945 in Remagen, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
- Werner von Fritsch was born on 4 August 1880 in Benrath [now Düsseldorf], Germany. He died on 22 September 1939 in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland.
- Olga Limburg was born on 5 April 1881 in Düsseldorf, Germany. She was an actress, known for Madame Bovary (1937), Mädchenjahre einer Königin (1936) and Hedda Gabler (1925). She died on 7 March 1970 in West Berlin, West Germany.
- Carl Brückel was born on 10 May 1881 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an actor, known for Die Laubenpieper (1963), Prinzess Wäscherin: Die rote Jule (1954) and Das Mädchen in der großen Stadt (1962). He was married to Franziska Martha Elisabeth Behrendt and Marie Margareta Winter. He died on 17 October 1980 in Freilassing, Bavaria, Germany.
- Elsa Janssen was born on 5 October 1883 in Düsseldorf, Germany. She was an actress, known for The Pride of the Yankees (1942), The Great Lover (1931) and Claudia (1943). She died on 5 February 1969 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Writer
- Actress
- Director
Rosa Porten was born on 18 February 1884 in Düsseldorf, Germany. She was a writer and actress, known for Erste Liebe (1918), Gräfin Maruschka (1917) and Die Erzkokette (1917). She died on 7 May 1972 in Munich, Germany.- Hans Müller-Schlösser was born on 14 June 1884 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was a writer, known for Schneider Wibbel (1920), Schneider Wibbel (1939) and Graf Chargon (1924). He died on 25 April 1956 in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany.
- Peter Esser was born on 4 April 1886 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an actor, known for Die Buddenbrooks (1923), The Plot to Assassinate Hitler (1955) and Der Mord ohne Täter (1921). He died on 24 June 1970 in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany.
- Heinrich Spoerl was born on 8 February 1887 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was a writer, known for Wenn wir alle Engel wären (1936), Der Maulkorb (1938) and Scheidungsreise (1938). He was married to Gertrud Kebben. He died on 25 August 1955 in Rottach Egern at Tegernsee, Bavaria, Germany.
- Franz Pfeffer von Salomon was born on 29 February 1888 in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He was married to Maria Freiin Raitz von Frentz. He died on 12 April 1968 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
- Director
- Writer
Heinrich Brandt was born on 19 August 1891 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He is known for Der Rächer von Davos (1924), Der Kampf ums Ich (1922) and Kampf der Geschlechter (1926).- Carl Auen was born on 16 February 1892 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an actor, known for Tante Gusti kommandiert (1932), Marschall Vorwärts (1932) and Abenteurerblut (1920). He died on 23 June 1972 in Lichterfelde, Berlin, Germany.
- Actress
- Writer
Greta Schröder was a German actress. She is best known for the role of Thomas Hutter's wife in the 1922 silent film Nosferatu. In the fictionalized 2000 film, Shadow of the Vampire, she is portrayed as having been a famous actress during the making of Nosferatu, but in fact she was little known.
The peak of her career was during the 1920s, and she continued to act well into the 1950s, but by the 1930s her roles had diminished to only occasional appearances.
Greta Schröder died on 8 June 1980 at the age of 87.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Harry Piel was born on 12 July 1892 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for Menschen und Masken, 1. Teil - Der falsche Emir (1924), Der Herr der Welt (1934) and Diplomaten (1918). He was married to Dary Holm and Johanna Präder. He died on 27 March 1963 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.- Cinematographer
- Director
- Additional Crew
Ewald Mathias Schumacher was born on 22 July 1893 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He is known for Our Heavenly Bodies (1920), Kalif Storch (1924) and In Schneekönigs Reich (1926).- Actress
Elisabeth Frohlich was born Elisabeth Heinrichs on November 14, 1894, in Dusseldorf, Germany. She was an actress, known for Thin Ice (1937), Lancer Spy (1937), Swiss Miss (1938), Gateway (1938), and I'll Give a Million (1938). She came to the USA in 1923, and married Gustav Rudolf Frohlich Sr. in 1924 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She died on November 29, 1941, in Los Angeles, California, USA, and is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California, USA.- Fritzleo Lietz was born on 30 May 1896 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He is known for Schiffer im Strom (1961), Sherlock Holmes (1967) and Ein treuer Diener seines Herrn (1967).
- Theodore Rocholl was born on 29 July 1897 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an actor, known for A Venetian Night (1914), Karriere in Paris (1952) and Port Arthur (1936). He died on 8 October 1978 in Berlin, Germany.
- Josy Holsten was born on 14 October 1897 in Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. She is known for Model Husband (1937), Wie d'Warret würkt (1933) and Polizischt Wäckerli (1955).
- Actress
Else Wolf was born on 20 May 1898 in Remscheid, Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. She was an actress. She was married to Friedrich Wolf. She died on 9 July 1973 in East Germany.- Hans Globke was born on 10 September 1898 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was married to Augusta Vaillant. He died on 13 February 1973 in Bonn, Northrhine-Westphalia, West Germany.
- Writer
- Director
- Cinematographer
Gösta Nordhaus was born on 8 January 1899 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He is known for Fliehende Schatten (1933), Besuch bei Onkel Emil (1936) and Baby! (1932).- Walter Steinweg was born on 12 October 1899 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an actor, known for Karneval der Liebe (1943), Immer nur Du (1941) and Variety (1935). He died in 1960 in Witten, Arnsberg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
- Actor
- Director
- Producer
After his school education, Gustaf Gründgens volunteered for the Western Front in 1916. The following year he joined the Saarlouis front theater group, which he led two years later. After the war, he trained from 1919 to 1920 at the Düsseldorf Theater School of Stage Arts. He took on his first roles at the municipal open-air theater and a year later an engagement at the municipal theaters in Halberstadt. This was followed by acting work in Kiel and Berlin. From 1923 Gustaf Gründgens played at the Kammerspiele in Hamburg. Within five years he took on 71 roles and directed 32 productions.
During this time he acquired a wide repertoire from classical drama to modern plays. In 1924 he made his debut as a director of plays such as "Anja and Esther" (1924) by Klaus Mann. In it he played the main role alongside Erika and Klaus Mann as well as Pamela Wiedekind. Gründgens married Erika Mann in 1926, but the marriage ended in divorce almost three years later. In 1927, Gründgens played at the Kammerspiele of the German Theater in Berlin. Productions and engagements at various stages in Berlin followed until 1933. In 1929 he directed his first opera, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro". He appeared frequently in cabarets with Grethe Weiser and Ernst Busch.
Gründgen also began his film work during this time. Gründgens often played seducers, shady characters, bon vivants, con artists and blackmailers, who were later portrayed well in films. In 1932, Gründgens was engaged at the Prussian Theater. There he played his first role as Mephistopheles in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's "Faust". Two years later he took over the position of director at the State Theater and became a state actor. He was appointed State Councilor in 1936 and married the actress Marianne Hoppe. In 1937 Gustaf Gründgens became general director of the Prussian State Theater.
He also appeared in front of the film camera several times for titles such as "The Girl Johanna" (1935), "Dance on the Volcano" (1938) and in the propaganda film "Ohm Krüger" (1941). He also directed films such as the aviation comedy "Capriolen" and "The Step from the Way" (1938) with Marianne Hoppe. A propagandistic tendency includes Gründgen's film "Two Worlds" (1939), which tells of two boys' harvest work. In 1938 and 1941, Gründgens staged opera works in Berlin and Vienna. He achieved a personal success in 1941 with the new production of Goethe's tragedy "Faust I", in which he also played Mephistopheles. The following year he was a member of the troop support team in Norway and in 1943 he took part in the service in the replacement department as a private.
After the end of the war, Gründgens spent nine months in a Soviet internment camp. In the denazification process, he was exonerated by, among others, Ernst Busch. In 1946 he played at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin. His first role was that of Christian Maske in "The Snob" by Carl Sternheim. From 1947 to 1955, Gründgens headed the Düsseldorf Municipal Theater as general manager. He was then general director of the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg. His production of "Faust I," which he performed in Moscow and New York, became world-famous. The play was made into a film in 1960. After the 1962/63 season he resigned from the position of director.
Gustaf Gründgens died of a stomach hemorrhage in Manila on October 7, 1963, during a trip around the world.- Actor
- Director
Otto Dierichs was born on 23 March 1900 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an actor and director, known for Die schwarze Galeere (1962), Hotel du Commerce (1964) and Tote Seelen (1959). He died on 12 September 1978 in East Berlin, East Germany.- Art Director
- Costume Designer
- Production Designer
Karl von Appen was born on 12 May 1900 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an art director and costume designer, known for Katzgraben (1957), Die Tage der Commune (1966) and Coriolan (1978). He was married to Manja Behrens. He died on 22 August 1981 in Berlin, Germany.- Heinrich Cornway was born on 8 June 1900 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an actor, known for Becket oder Die Ehre Gottes (1962) and As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me (1959). He died on 18 April 1968 in Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany.
- Jupp Hussels was born on 30 January 1901 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an actor, known for Drei tolle Tage (1936), Rheinische Brautfahrt (1939) and Der dunkle Punkt (1940). He died on 10 April 1986 in Großenhain, Germany.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Max Lorenz was born on 17 May 1901 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an actor, known for Altes Herz wird wieder jung (1943) and Der Kardinal (1962). He died on 11 January 1975 in Salzburg, Austria.- Eduard Marks was born on 9 November 1901 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an actor, known for Faust (1960), Die Dreigroschenoper (1972) and Königinnen von Frankreich (1953). He was married to Annemarie Marks-Rocke. He died on 30 June 1981 in Hamburg, West Germany.
- Margarethe Koeppke was born on 5 February 1902 in Düsseldorf, Germany. She was an actress, known for Murder for Sale (1930). She died on 16 September 1930 in Vienna, Austria.
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Paul Hoffmann was born on 25 March 1902 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an actor and director, known for Fanny Elssler (1937), Hedda Gabler (1963) and Die Entlassung (1942). He died on 2 December 1990 in Vienna, Austria.- Jakob Sporrenberg was born on 16 September 1902 in Düsseldorf, German Empire [now Germany]. He died on 6 December 1952 in Warsaw, Poland.
- Marita Gründgens was born on 23 May 1903 in Düsseldorf, Germany. She was an actress, known for Liebe, Tod und Teufel (1934), Komm in die Wanne, Schätzchen (1971) and WWF Club (1980). She died on 24 December 1985 in Solingen, Germany.
- Erich Kordt was born on 10 December 1903 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He died on 11 November 1969 in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
A classical stage actor who enjoyed modest film stardom in the late 1940s and 1950s, the good-looking, somewhat unassuming British actor Norman Wooland also worked extensively on radio and television in a career that spanned six decades. Born to British parents in Dusseldorf, Germany on March 16, 1910, he was educated in England and started out in local theatre during his teen years. He went on to earn strong notice in repertory as a regular performer in Stratford-on-Avon Shakespearean productions. Appearing in "The Merchant of Venice" by the age of 16, he graced a number of pre-WWII plays including "When We Are Married" (1937), "Time and the Conways" (1938) and "What They Say" (1939). He joined the BBC in 1939 and spent six years as a radio commentator.
Although he made his film debut in 1937, Wooland did not attract much attention until the post-war era. The dark-haired, slightly drawn-faced actor made strong leading man impressions with Escape (1948), Look Before You Love (1948), All Over the Town (1949) and Madeleine (1950) while thriving onscreen in Shakespeare as well, notably supporting Laurence Olivier. Wooland portrayed Horatio opposite Olivier's Oscar-winning Hamlet (1948) and later played Catesby to Olivier's Richard III (1955). He also played Paris alongside Laurence Harvey and Susan Shentall's Romeo and Juliet (1954), in a lesser known version of the Bard's tragedy. Wooland reunited with his movie Hamlet compatriots Eileen Herlie (Gertrude) and Basil Sydney (Claudius) in the notable historical drama The Angel with the Trumpet (1950) portraying Prince Rudolf. He also appeared with Ms. Herlie in a stage production of "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray the following year.
The 1950s was Wooland's most steadfast decade for making films, which included the period costumers Quo Vadis (1951) and Ivanhoe (1952), in which he portrayed Richard the Lionhearted, and a lead role in the crime drama The Master Plan (1954). In the ensuing years he moved further down the credits list with The Flesh Is Weak (1957), The Bandit of Zhobe (1959), The Guns of Navarone (1961), Barabbas (1961) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), but was offered the lead (King Saul) in the Spanish/Italian co-production Saul e David (1964). He found more varied work on TV, even sitcoms, in the 60s and 70s, and continued his strong work on the stage with "An Enemy of the People" (1968), "A Man for All Seasons" (1972), "Six Characters in Search of an Author" (1972), "Pride and Prejudice" (1975), "Equus" (1976) and "The Wild Duck" (1979). Wooland died in England in 1989 after having suffered multiple strokes.- Toni Ulmen was born on 25 January 1906 in Düsseldorf, Germany.
- Hans Rabl was born on 27 January 1906 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Hans is a writer, known for Goal in the Clouds (1939) and Christina (1949).
- Heinz Joachim Klein was born on 18 September 1906 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an actor, known for The American Friend (1977), Feuer um Mitternacht (1978) and Jauche und Levkojen (1978). He was married to Doris Schade. He died on 2 February 1998 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.
- Actor
- Writer
- Music Department
Theodore Gottlieb was born on 11 November 1906 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an actor and writer, known for The 'Burbs (1989), The Last Unicorn (1982) and Nocturna (1979). He died on 5 April 2001 in New York City, New York, USA.- Heinz Rosenthal was born on 29 May 1907 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was an actor, known for Kapitäne bleiben an Bord (1959), Emilia Galotti (1958) and Das kleine und das große Glück (1953). He died in 1977 in Germany.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Loni Heuser was born on 22 January 1908 in Düsseldorf, Germany. She was an actress, known for Theft of the Sabines (1954), Three Golden Serpents (1969) and Die Dubarry (1951). She was married to Theo Mackeben. She died on 6 March 1999 in Berlin, Germany.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Helmut Käutner was born on 25 March 1908 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was a director and writer, known for The Captain from Köpenick (1956), The Last Bridge (1954) and The Rest Is Silence (1959). He was married to Erica Balqué. He died on 20 April 1980 in Castellina in Chianti, Tuscany, Italy.- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
- Producer
Gustav Wilhelm Lehmbruck was born on 11 March 1909 in Düsseldorf, Germany. He was a writer and producer, known for Friedrich Schiller (1956), Ein Strom fließt durch Deutschland (1954) and Daß ein gutes Deutschland blühe (1960). He died in 1978 in Germany.- Konrad Thur was born on 4 April 1909 in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He died on 20 November 2007 in Langeskov, Denmark.
- Actor
- Producer
Dolf Zenzen was born on 3 October 1909 in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He was an actor and producer, known for Lachkabinett (1953), Wer bist du, den ich liebe? (1949) and Golowin geht durch die Stadt (1940). He died in October 2003 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.- Actress
- Soundtrack
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 (Königsberger) and Heinrich Rainer, a businessman. She took to the stage, and plied her craft on the boards in Germany. As a young actress, she was discovered by the legendary theater director Max Reinhardt and became part of his company in Vienna, Austria. "I was supposed to be very gifted, and he heard about me. He wanted me to be part of his theater," Rainer recounted in a 1997 interview. She joined Reinhardt's theatrical company in Vienna and spent years developing as an actress under his tutelage. As part of Reinhardt's company, Rainer became a popular stage actress in Berlin and Vienna in the early 1930s. Rainer was a natural talent for Reinhardt's type of staging, which required an impressionistic acting style.
Rainer, who made her screen debut as a teenager and appeared in three other German-language films in the early 1930s, terminated her European career when the Austrian Adolf Hitler consolidated his power in Germany. With his vicious anti-Semitism bringing about the Draconian Nuremberg Laws severely curtailing the rights of Germany's Jews, and efforts to expand that regime into the Sudetenland and Austria, Hitler and his Nazi government was proving a looming threat to European Jewry. Rainer had been spotted by a talent scout, who offered her a seven-year contract with the American studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The 25-year-old Rainer took the deal and emigrated to the United States.
She made her American debut in the movie Escapade (1935), replacing Myrna Loy, who was originally slated for the part. It was her luck to have William Powell as her co-star in her first Hollywood film, as he mentored her, teaching her how to act in front of the camera. Powell, whom Rainer remembers as "a dear man" and "a very fine person," lobbied MGM. boss Louis B. Mayer, reportedly telling him, "You've got to star this girl, or I'll look like an idiot."
During the making of "Escapade", Rainer met, and fell in love with, the left-wing playwright Clifford Odets, then at the height of his fame. They were married in 1937. It was not a happy union. MGM cast Rainer in support of Powell in the title role of the The Great Ziegfeld (1936), its spectacular bio-epic featuring musical numbers that recreated his "Follies" shows on Broadway. As Anna Held, Ziegfeld's common-law wife, Rainer excelled in the musical numbers, but it is for her telephone scene that she is most remembered. "The Great Ziegfeld" was a big hit and went on to win the Academy Award as Best Picture of 1936. Rainer received her first of two successive Best Actress Oscars for playing Held. The award was highly controversial at the time as she was a relative unknown and it was only her first nomination, but also because her role was so short and relatively minor that it better qualified for a supporting nomination. (While 1936 was the first year that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences honored supporting players, her studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, listed her as a lead player, then got out its block vote for her.) Compounding the controversy was the fact that Rainer beat out such better known and more respected actresses as Carole Lombard (her sole Oscar nomination) in My Man Godfrey (1936), previous Best Actress winner Norma Shearer (her fifth nomination) in Romeo and Juliet (1936), and Irene Dunne (her second of five unsuccessful nominations) in Theodora Goes Wild (1936). Some of the bitchery was directed toward Louis B. Mayer, whom non-MGM Academy members resented for his ability to manipulate Academy votes. Other critics of her first Oscar win claimed it was the result of voters being unduly impressed with the great budget ($2 million) of "The Great Ziegfeld" rather than great acting. Most observers agree that Rainer won her Oscar as the result of her moving and poignant performance in just one single scene in the picture, the famous telephone scene in which the broken-hearted Held congratulates Ziegfeld over the telephone on his upcoming marriage to Billie Burke while trying to retain her composure and her dignity. During the scene, the camera is entirely focused on Rainer, and she delivers a tour-de-force performance. Seventy years later, it remains one of the most famous scenes in movie history. With another actress playing Held, the scene could have been mawkish, but Rainer brought the pathos of the scene out and onto film. She based her interpretation of the scene on Jean Cocteau's play "La Voix Humaine". "Cocteau's play is just a telephone conversation about a woman who has lost her beloved to another woman", Rainer remembered. "That is the comparison. As it fit into the Ziegfeld story, that's how I wrote it. It's a daily happening, not just in Cocteau." In an interview held 60 years after the film's release, Rainer was dismissive of the performance. "I was never proud of anything", she said. "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."
Rainer would allay any back-biting from Hollywood's bovines over her first Oscar with her performance as O-Lan in MGM producer Irving Thalberg's spectacular adaptation of Pearl S. Buck's "The Good Earth", the former Boy Wonder's final picture before his untimely death. The role won Rainer her second Best Actress Award. The success of The Good Earth (1937) was rooted in its realism, and its realism was enhanced by Rainer's acting opposite the legendary Paul Muni as her husband. When Thalberg cast Muni in the role of Wang Lung, he had to abandon any thought of casting the Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong as O-Lan as the Hays Office would not allow the hint of miscegenation, even between an actual Chinese woman and a Caucuasian actor in yellow-face drag. So, Thalberg gave Rainer the part, and she made O-Lan her own. She refused to wear a heavy makeup, and her elfin look helped her to assay a Chinese woman with results far superior to those of Myrna Loy in her Oriental vamp phase or Katharine Hepburn in Dragon Seed (1944). In the late 1990s, Rainer praised her director, Sidney Franklin, as "wonderful", and explained that she used an acting technique similar to "The Method" being pioneered by her husband's Group Theatre comrades back in New York. "I worked from inside out", she said. "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." The win made Rainer the first two-time Oscar winner in an acting category and the first to win consecutive acting awards (Spencer Tracy, her distaff honoree for Captains Courageous (1937) would follow her as a consecutive acting Oscar winner the next year, and Walter Brennan, Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner for Come and Get It (1936) the year Rainer won her first, would tie them both in 1937 with his win for Kentucky (1938) and trump them with his third win for The Westerner (1940), a record subsequently tied by Ingrid Bergman, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Daniel Day-Lewis, and surpassed by Katharine Hepburn.)
Rainer's career soon went into free-fall and collapsed, as she became the first notable victim of the "Oscar curse", the phenomenon that has seem many a performer's career take a nose-dive after winning an Academy Award. "For my second and third pictures I won Academy Awards. Nothing worse could have happened to me", Rainer said. A non-conformist, Rainer rejected Hollywood's values of Hollywood. In the late 1990s, she said, "I came from Europe where I was with a wonderful theater group, and I worked. The only thing on my mind was to do good work. I didn't know what an Academy Award was." MGM boss Mayer, the founding force behind the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, had to force her to attend the Awards banquet to receive her Oscar. She rebelled against the studio due to the movies that MGM forced her into after "The Good Earth".
In one case, director Dorothy Arzner had been assigned by MGM producer Joseph M. Mankiewicz (whose wife, Rose Stradner had been Rainer's understudy in the Vienna State Theater) in 1937 to direct Rainer in "The Girl from Trieste", an unproduced Ferenc Molnár play about a prostitute trying to go reform herself who discovers the hypocrisies of the respectable class which she aspires to. After Thalberg's death in 1936, Mayer's lighter aesthetic began to rule the roost at MGM. Mayer genuinely believed in the goodness of women and motherhood and put women on a pedestal; he once told screenwriter Frances Marion that he never wanted to see anything produced by MGM that would embarrass his wife and two daughters.
Without the more sophisticated Thalberg at the studio to run interference, Molnar's play was rewritten so that it was no longer about a prostitute, but a slightly bitter Cinderella story with a happy ending. Retitled by Mankiewicz as The Bride Wore Red (1937), Rainer withdrew and was replaced by Joan Crawford. In a 1976 interview in "The New York Times", Arzner claimed that Rainer "had been suspended for marrying a Communist" (Clifford Odets). This is unlikely as MGM, like all Hollywood studios, had known or suspected communists on its payroll, most of whose affiliations were known by MGM vice president E.J. Mannix. (Mannix, one of whose functions was responsibility for security at the studio, once said it would have been impossible to fire them all, as "the communists" were the studio's best writers.) The studio never took action against alleged communists until an industry-wide agreement to do so was sealed at the Waldorf Conference of 1947, which was held in reaction to the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) launching a Hollywood witch hunt.
It was more likely that Rainer, fussy over her projects and wanting to use her Academy Award prominence to ensure herself better roles, withdrew on her own due to her lack of enthusiasm for the reformulated product. In the late 1990s, Rainer recalled the satisfaction of being a European stage actress. "One day we were on a big tour", she told an interviewer in the late 1990s. "We did a play by Pirandello, and Reinhardt was in the theater. I shall never forget, it was the greatest compliment I ever got, better than any Academy Award. He came to me, looked at me and said - we were never called by first names - 'Rainer, how did you do this?' It was so wonderful. 'How did you create this?' I was so startled and happy. That was my Academy Award." Rainer still is dismissive of the Academy Awards. "I can't watch the Oscars," she said. "Everybody thanking their mother, their father, their grandparents, their nurse - it's a crazy, horrible." She blames the studio and Mayer for the rapid decline in her career. "What they did with me upset me very much", she said in a 1997 interview. "I was dreaming naturally like anyone to do something very good, but after I got the two Academy Awards the studio thought, it doesn't matter what she gets. They threw all kinds of stuff on me, and I thought, no, I didn't want to be an actress."
Mayer pulled his famous emotional routines when Rainer, whom he wanted to turn into a glamorous star, would demand meatier roles. "He would cry phony tears", she recalled. Mayer had opposed her being cast as O-Lan in "The Good Earth", but Thalberg, who had a connection with MGM capo di tutti capi Nicholas Schenck, the president of MGM corporate parent Loew's, Inc., appealed to Schenck, who overrode Mayer's veto. (Mayer, who was involved in a power struggle with Thalberg before the latter's death, had opposed his filming Pearl Buck's novel. Mayer's reasoning was that American audiences wouldn't patronize movies about American farmers, so what made anyone think they'd flock to see a film about Chinese farmers, especially one with such a big budget, estimated at $2.8 million. (Upon release, the film barely broke even.) Thalberg died during the filming of "The Good Earth" (the only film of his released by MGM whose title credits bore his name, in the form of a posthumous tribute).
Rainer felt lost without her protector. She recalled that Mayer "didn't know what to do with me, and that made me so unhappy. I was on the stage with great artists, and everything was so wonderful. I was in a repertory theater, and every night I played something else." Rainer asked to play Nora in a film of Ibsen's "A Doll's House" or portray Madame Curie, but instead, Mayer - now in complete control of the studio - had her cast in The Toy Wife (1938), a movie she actually wound up liking, as she was charmed by her co-star, the urbane, intellectually and politically enlightened Melvyn Douglas. She recalls Douglas, ultimately a double-Oscar winner like herself, as her favorite leading man. "He was intelligent, and he was interested also in other things than acting."
Her problems with the culture of Hollywood, or the lack thereof, were worsening. The lack of intellectual conversation or concern with ideas by the denizens of the movie colony she was forced to work with was depressing. Hollywood was an unsophisticated place where materialism, such as the stars' preoccupation with clothes, was paramount. As she tells it, "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."
MGM teamed her with fellow Oscar-winner Tracy in Big City (1937), a movie about conflict between rival taxi drivers. The memory of the movie disgusted her. "Supposedly it wasn't a bad film, but I thought it was a bad film!" She was also cast in The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937), reteaming her with "Ziegfeld" co-star Powell, a movie she didn't like, as she couldn't understand its story. A detective tale, the script thoroughly confused Rainer, who was expected to soldier on like a good employee. Instead, she resisted.
After appearing in The Great Waltz (1938) and Dramatic School (1938), her career was virtually over by 1938. She never made another film for MGM. "I just had to get away", she said about Hollywood. "I couldn't bear this total concentration and interviews on oneself, oneself, oneself. I wanted to learn, and to live, to go all over the world, to learn by seeing things and experiencing things, and Hollywood seemed very narrow." When World War II broke out in Europe, Rainer was joined by her family, as her German-born father was also an American citizen, allowing them all to escape Hitler and the Holocaust. Even before the outbreak of war, Rainer had been very worried about the state of affairs of the world, and she could not abide the escapist trifles that MGM wanted to cast her in. When she protested, Mayer told Rainer that if she defied him, he would blackball her in Hollywood.
Disturbed by Hollywood's apathy over fascism in Europe and Asia and by labor unrest and poverty in the U.S., she decided to walk out on her contract. She and Odets returned to New York. They were divorced in 1940. "Hollywood was a very strange place", she remembered. "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." Her frustration with Hollywood was so complete, she abandoned movie acting in the early 1940s, after making the World War II drama Hostages (1943) for Paramount.
She made her Broadway debut in the play "A Kiss for Cinderella", which was staged by Lee Strasberg, which opened at the Music Box Theatre on March 10, 1942 and closed April 18th after 48 performances. Rainer then worked for the war effort during World War II, appearing at war bond rallies. She went on a tour of North Africa and Italy for the Army Special Service, socializing with soldiers to build their morale, and supplying them with books. The experience changed her life, allowing her to get over the shyness she'd had all her life. It also broadened her experience, forcing her to deal with the obvious fact that there were more important things than movie acting, which had proven unfulfilling to her.
Fortunately, Rainer found happiness in a long-lived marriage with the publisher Robert Knittel, a wealthy man whom she married in 1945. The couple had a daughter and made their home mostly in Switzerland and England as Rainer essentially left acting behind, although she did do some television in the 1940s, '50s, and '60s. Her retirement from the movies lasted for 53 years, until her brief comeback in The Gambler (1997), a movie based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's eponymous story. In the film, Rainer played the role of the matriarch of an aristocratic Russian family in the 1860s who is in hock due to the family members' obsession with gambling.
Toward the end of her life, Rainer lived in a luxurious flat in Eaton Square in London's Belgravia district, in a building where Vivien Leigh once lived. Blessed with a good memory, she claimed she could not remember the 1937 Academy Awards ceremony, when she won her first Oscar. She says the glamour of the event was out of sync with her life at the time, which was one of great sadness. "I married Clifford Odets. The marriage was for both of us a failure. He wanted me to be his little wife and a great actress at the same time. Somehow I could not live up to all of that."
She had intriguing offers during her long retirement. Federico Fellini had wanted Rainer for a role in La Dolce Vita (1960), but though she admired the director, she didn't like the script and turned it down. Rainer occasionally plied her craft as an actress on the stage. She made one more stab at Broadway, appearing in a 1950 production of Ibsen's "The Lady from the Sea", which was staged by Sam Wanamaker and Terese Hayden and co-starred Steven Hill, 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 had 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.