Luise Rainer Biography

Fast Facts

• Was the first person to win an Oscar in two consecutive years
• Won a New York Times Film Critics Circle Award for best actress for "The Great Ziegfeld" in 1937
• A protégé of Max Reinhardt, she was an accomplished screen and stage actress in Germany before an American talent scout discovered her for MGM
• Quote: "Happiness lies in moments, and while you have it you're not even aware, only afterwards do you know you were happy․"
• Quote: "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․ You must feel it, and give birth to it, like a child․"
• Quote: "When you lose your curiosity, you're dead․ There is so much in the world that one should know, or it would be marvelous to know․ And I know nothing․ Nothing! My God, one's life-span is so very short․"
• Known for the dynamic and fluid nature of her acting, she could go from happiness to despair in moments
• Her most celebrated roles were in "The Great Ziegfeld" and "The Good Earth․"
• Befriended Albert Einstein when she was young, much to the ire of her then-husband Clifford Odets, who once destroyed a picture of Einstein with scissors out of jealousy
• Gave the original Oscar statuette that she won for her role in "The Good Earth" to the removal men who moved her from Switzerland to London because she had been using it as a doorstop and it was bent
• Sold her papers, including an autographed score of "Porgy and Bess" from George Gershwin, to Boston University