'Trumbo' movie: Bryan Cranston as screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and Helen Mirren as gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. 'Trumbo' movie review: Highly entertaining 'history lesson' Full disclosure: on the wall in my study hangs a poster – the iconic photograph of blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, with black-horned rim glasses, handlebar mustache, a smoke dangling from the end of a dramatic cigarette holder. He's sitting – stark naked – in a tub surrounded by his particular writing apparatus. He's looking directly into the camera of the photographer, his daughter Mitzi. Dalton Trumbo's son, Christopher Trumbo, gave me the poster after my interview with him for the release of Peter Askin's 2007 documentary also titled Trumbo. That film combines archival footage, including family movies and photographs, with performances of the senior Trumbo's letters to his family during their many years of turmoil before and through the blacklist, including his time in prison. The letters are read by,...
- 11/7/2015
- by Tim Cogshell
- Alt Film Guide
Luise Rainer, the first person to win back-to-back-acting Oscars, died Tuesday of pneumonia. She was 104 years old. The German-born star was named best actress in 1936 and 1937, but she believed the accolades were detrimental to her career. She starred in her last major Hollywood film in 1943 (Hostages) before largely walking away from the business. "When I got two Oscars, they thought, 'Oh, they can throw me into anything,'" she said in a 1999 interview, per the Hollywood Reporter. "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." Rainer, once hailed as the next Greta Garbo, moved to...
- 12/30/2014
- E! Online
Luise Rainer, the first person to win back-to-back Academy Awards, died on Tuesday of pneumonia. She was 104.
Rainer took home the top actress trophies in 1936 and 1937 for her roles on “The Great Ziegfeld” and “The Good Earth,” respectively. Only four other actors have since match the feat.
Also Read: Hollywood’s Notable Deaths of 2014 (Photos)
Rainer closed out her brief Hollywood film career with “Hostages” in 1943, and spent most of her later life in England. She made the occasional film and TV appearances, including on a 1984 episode of “The Love Boat.” One of her last film roles was in 1998 Fyodor Dostoyevsky adaptation “The Gambler.
Rainer took home the top actress trophies in 1936 and 1937 for her roles on “The Great Ziegfeld” and “The Good Earth,” respectively. Only four other actors have since match the feat.
Also Read: Hollywood’s Notable Deaths of 2014 (Photos)
Rainer closed out her brief Hollywood film career with “Hostages” in 1943, and spent most of her later life in England. She made the occasional film and TV appearances, including on a 1984 episode of “The Love Boat.” One of her last film roles was in 1998 Fyodor Dostoyevsky adaptation “The Gambler.
- 12/30/2014
- by Tony Maglio
- The Wrap
Luise Rainer, a star of cinema's golden era who won back-to-back Oscars but then walked away from a glittering Hollywood career, has died. She was 104. Rainer, whose roles ranged from the 1930s German stage to television's The Love Boat, died Tuesday at her home in London from pneumonia, said her only daughter, Francesca Knittel-Bowyer. "She was bigger than life and can charm the birds out of the trees," Knittel-Bowyer said. "If you saw her, you'd never forget her." The big-eyed, apple-cheeked Rainer gained Hollywood immortality by becoming the first person to win an acting Academy Award in consecutive years, taking...
- 12/30/2014
- by Associated Press
- PEOPLE.com
The first back-to-back Oscar winner, Luise Rainer, died yesterday in her London home at the age of 104. Rainer's daughter, Francesca Knittel-Bowyer, confirmed the news to multiple outlets.
The German-born actress won consecutive Academy Awards for "The Great Ziegfeld" in 1936 and "The Good Earth" in 1937. But while Rainer achieved great success shortly after arriving in Hollywood, she never felt comfortable in the spotlight.
She had to be ordered by MGM boss Louis B. Mayer to attend the Academy Awards ceremony to accept her "Good Earth" trophy, according to The Hollywood Reporter. And she once said of winning back-to-back Oscars: "Nothing worse could have happened to me."
Rainer was unhappy with the films that Mayer and MGM wanted her to do after her record wins. "I was a machine, practically - a tool in a big, big factory, and I could not do anything," she told The AP in 1999. "And so I left.
The German-born actress won consecutive Academy Awards for "The Great Ziegfeld" in 1936 and "The Good Earth" in 1937. But while Rainer achieved great success shortly after arriving in Hollywood, she never felt comfortable in the spotlight.
She had to be ordered by MGM boss Louis B. Mayer to attend the Academy Awards ceremony to accept her "Good Earth" trophy, according to The Hollywood Reporter. And she once said of winning back-to-back Oscars: "Nothing worse could have happened to me."
Rainer was unhappy with the films that Mayer and MGM wanted her to do after her record wins. "I was a machine, practically - a tool in a big, big factory, and I could not do anything," she told The AP in 1999. "And so I left.
- 12/30/2014
- by Kelly Woo
- Moviefone
Luise Rainer dies at age 104: Rainer was first consecutive Oscar winner, first two-time winner in acting categories and oldest surviving winner (photo: MGM star Luise Rainer in the mid-'30s.) The first consecutive Academy Award winner, the first two-time winner in the acting categories, and, at age 104, the oldest surviving Oscar winner as well, Luise Rainer (Best Actress for The Great Ziegfeld, 1936, and The Good Earth, 1937) died at her London apartment on December 30 -- nearly two weeks before her 105th birthday. Below is an article originally posted in January 2014, at the time Rainer turned 104. I'll be sharing more Luise Rainer news later on Tuesday. January 17, 2014: Inevitably, the Transformers movies' director Michael Bay (who recently had an on-camera "meltdown" after a teleprompter stopped working at the Consumer Electronics Show) and the Transformers movies' star Shia Labeouf (who was recently accused of plagiarism) were mentioned -- or rather, blasted, in...
- 12/30/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Oldest person in movies? (Photo: Manoel de Oliveira) Following the recent passing of 1931 Dracula actress Carla Laemmle at age 104, there is one less movie centenarian still around. So, in mid-June 2014, who is the oldest person in movies? Manoel de Oliveira Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira will turn 106 next December 11; he’s surely the oldest person — at least the oldest well-known person — in movies today. De Oliveira’s film credits include the autobiographical docudrama Memories and Confessions / Visita ou Memórias e Confissões (1982), with de Oliveira as himself, and reportedly to be screened publicly only after his death; The Cannibals / Os Canibais (1988); The Convent / O Convento (1995); Porto of My Childhood / Porto da Minha Infância (2001); The Fifth Empire / O Quinto Império - Ontem Como Hoje (2004); and, currently in production, O Velho do Restelo ("The Old Man of Restelo"). Among the international stars who have been directed by de Oliveira are Catherine Deneuve, Pilar López de Ayala,...
- 6/17/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Frank Capra, Luise Rainer, George Jessel Luise Rainer turns 102 today, January 12. She is the oldest living Academy Award winner in the acting categories, having won two consecutive Best Actress Oscars for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937). Because of both her longevity and the fact that Turner Classic Movies regularly shows nearly all of her films, the Dusseldorf-born (some sources say Vienna) Rainer is probably better known today than at any time since the 1940s, when she last starred in a Hollywood production: Frank Tuttle's now-forgotten Paramount resistance drama Hostages (1943). Before this ongoing revival, Rainer was best remembered as the two-time Oscar winner with a four-year film career (1935-1938), while her acting was generally dismissed as several notches below subpar. In fact, to many she served as one of the prime reminders of the unworthiness of the Academy Awards. As the oft-told story goes, when Raymond Chandler got...
- 1/12/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Paul Muni, Luise Rainer in Sidney Franklin's The Good Earth Luise Rainer Reminisces: The Oscars, Greta Garbo, Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway – Part I Why did she leave Hollywood in 1938, after only nine films? (Actually, eight at MGM from 1935-1938; she then quit Hollywood, but returned for one, Hostages, at Paramount in 1943.) Luise Rainer explains: "I felt the work in films that I was supposed to do wasn't worth it. I felt I didn't become an actress to make second-class nonsense." Among the "second-class nonsense" were, apparently, The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937), once again opposite William Powell; Big City (1937), opposite Spencer Tracy; and the — in my view, really good — Dramatic School (1938), featuring the likes of Paulette Goddard, Lana Turner, Genevieve Tobin, and fellow Oscar winner Gale Sondergaard. "Because I got the Oscars," Rainer adds, "they felt 'Rainer can do anything!' So, they threw films at me that [...]...
- 2/25/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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