How much was Luise Rainer worth?
| Net Worth: | $2 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Professional Actress |
| Date of Birth: | January 12, 1910 |
| Country: | German-born American-British |
| Height: | 1.63 m |
About Luise Rainer
At the age of 16, Rainer started her acting career in Germany. She received advice from Max Reinhardt, one of Austria’s top theater directors at the time. After spending several years performing on stages and in movies in Austria and Germany, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer talent scouts stumbled upon Luise Rainer in 1935. She quickly received a three-year Hollywood deal.
The Good Earth’s radiant star Luise Rainer’s life story is one of Hollywood’s weirdest. She won two Oscars, drifted to obscurity in her youth, and then made a comeback in her later years.
Born in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1910, Rainer started her training at the age of 15 under the legendary theatrical director Max Reinhardt. She passed away yesterday at the age of 104. She performed with his Vienna theater company, receiving glowing reviews.
She was given a contract by MGM, which is constantly looking for the next Greta Garbo. Her debut performance for that studio was in 1935’s Escapade, and her next role was that of Anna Held in The Great Ziegfeld (1936).
With her second role, Rainer gained the nickname “The Viennese Teardrop,” thanks to the audiences’ awe at her beauty and expressiveness. Her telephone scene in the movie helped her win the Academy Award for Best Actress. Louis B. Mayer made Rainer attend the ceremony even though she had never heard of the Academy Awards before moving to Hollywood.
The Good Planet
Then, producer Irving Thalberg wanted her for the classic adaptation of Pearl S. Buck’s novel The Good Earth, which is about a Chinese freed slave named O-Lan who marries a farmer (Paul Muni). The picture had a staggering $2.8 million budget.
Rainer admitted to the audience that she worked extremely hard to avoid playing the role of O-Lan, which had very little conversation, during an interview with Robert Osborne in April 2010 at a Turner Classic Movies Festival in Los Angeles. When she went to see Irving Thalberg to ask him to remove her from the movie, Thalberg grabbed her by the neck, turned her around, and gently pushed her out of his office.
As with Camille, Irene Dunne’s performance in The Awful Truth, Greta Garbo’s in Camille, Janet Gaynor’s in A Star is Born, and Barbara Stanwyck’s in Stella Dallas, Rainer was once again given an Academy Award for The Good Earth.
The Oscar Curse
Thus began Rainer’s film career’s demise. Nothing worse could have happened to me, says Rainer of receiving two consecutive Oscar nominations. In actuality, had Irving Thalberg not passed away in 1937, things for Rainer at MGM would have been considerably better. When she tried to get a raise and roles similar to what Thalberg had offered her, she was frustrated since Louis B. Mayer was less intellectual and more focused on family entertainment. Mayer warned her, “We made you, and we can destroy you.” “God made me,” Rainer said in response.
Rainer walked out on her contract and relocated to New York City after appearing in The Emperor’s Candlesticks, Big City, The Toy Wife, The Great Waltz, and Dramatic School. She and writer Clifford Odets, whom she had married in 1937, briefly resided there. She loved him, but the marriage was a disaster. They divorced in 1940 after quickly splitting apart. She also acquired U.S. citizenship in 1940.
After leaving America, Rainer assisted Spanish Civil War orphans. She participated in the play Behold the Bride while also studying medicine.
Go back to America
In 1942, the actress relocated back to New York, where she made her Broadway debut in A Kiss for Cinderella. Later, she realized that the only reason she had been able to aid refugee children and have doors opened for her was because of the celebrity she had gained from the film industry. She fully devoted herself to the war effort. She chose to go back to Hollywood.
Her MGM contract had ended by 1942. She had a test with Paramount chief David Rose for For Whom the Bell Tolls (1942), but Ingrid Bergman won the part. She instead played a minor role in the movie Hostages (1943). Unfortunately, Rainer discovered that Hollywood was still the same—shallow and self-absorbed—and that the war had taught her that there were many more significant aspects of life.
A Fresh Start
Rainer gave up her hopes of making a return and wed publisher Robert Knittel in 1945. They initially established themselves in Switzerland before relocating to England in the 1950s. Francesca was the couple’s first child, and they were married until Knittel passed away in 1989.
For the 1960 film La Dolce Vita, Rainer came very close to making a comeback, but her Dolores character’s part was deleted before filming. She allegedly refused to perform a sexual scene, and there are even accusations that she insisted on directing the dialogue. Once she and Knittel settled in England, she occasionally made an appearance on stage and television.
Rainer made a comeback to the big screen in The Gambler (1997), playing the matriarch of a Russian household, after 53 years of retirement. She was then 86 years old. She attended the Academy Award ceremonies in 1998 and 2003, both of which included tributes to previous Oscar winners, on the grounds that “If I don’t show up, they’ll think I’m dead.”
holder of the record for an Oscar(s)
The first actor to win two Oscars, the first to win them back-to-back, the first with a flawless record of two nominations and two wins, the youngest to win a second Oscar, the first to win two Oscars before turning 30, the only German actress to win an Academy Award, and as of this writing, the oldest living Oscar winner, Rainer holds many Oscar records. Rainer does not care for the Oscars as a result of all of that: “Everyone thanking their mother, father, grandparents, or nurse – it’s a crazy, horrible.”
An Iron Will
Hollywood made a mistake if they believed Rainer would follow their rules due to her delicate appearance and wide, soulful eyes. After leaving Hollywood, Rainer found fulfillment in a variety of different areas of her life. She claims, “I always lived more than I worked.” Which is not to say that I don’t adore my job; doing it gave me enormous joy and fulfillment every single day.”
Death
Thirteen days before her 105th birthday, on December 30, 2014, at the age of 104, Rainer passed away in London from pneumonia. Luise Rainer had a $2 million net worth when she passed away. Rainer was residing at Vivien Leigh’s former apartment at 54 Eaton Square in Belgravia, London. In 2015, an auction of Rainer’s memorabilia brought in $489,069 for her heirs.
