Luise Rainer Net Worth

Luise Rainer's Quotes

• 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.
• [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.
• [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.
• [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.
• The Oscar is not a curse. The real curse is that once you have an Oscar they think you can do anything.

Interesting Facts about Luise Rainer

1. Was coaxed out of a 20-year retirement to appear on Combat!: Finest Hour (1965).
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Her second husband, Robert Knittel, was a New York publisher whom she married in 1945. They had one child, Francesca Knittel-Bowyer.
5. Was the first actor to win back-to-back Academy Awards, for her performances in The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and De goede aarde (1937). She was also the first actor to win two Oscars. The following year, 1938, Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis, and Walter Brennan also became double Academy Award winners.
6. Attended The 75th Annual Academy Awards (2003) and appeared in the Oscar winner tribute sequence introduced by Olivia de Havilland. She was the most senior member of the tribute sequence.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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 De goede aarde (1937).
10. 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)).
11. One of two actresses born in Germany to win the Oscar; the other being Simone Signoret.
12. She is mentioned in Truman Capote's novel "Breakfast at Tiffany's". 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.".
13. Became a US citizen in the 1940s.
14. Parents were Heinrich Rainer and his wife Emilie Königsberger.
15. Is only one of seven actors who have a 2-0 winning record when nominated for an acting Oscar, her two wins for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and De goede aarde (1937). The others are Vivien Leigh for Gejaagd door de 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); Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Django Unchained (2012); and Mahershala Ali for Moonlight (2016) and Green Book (2018).
16. As of 2014, at 104 years old, she was the oldest living Oscar winner.
17. The youngest person to ever win a second Oscar (aged 28, for De goede aarde (1937)).
18. Considers her performance as O-Lan Ling in De goede aarde (1937) to be her finest on film.
19. The first multiple Oscar-winning actor or actress to reach the age of 100. Followed by Olivia de Havilland in 2016.
20. Was in consideration for the role of Maria in Voor wie de klok luidt (1943) but Ingrid Bergman, who received a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance, was cast instead.