LONDON – German-born Luise Rainer, the first movie star to win two successive Oscars for best actress, died on Tuesday in London at the age of 104, a friend of the family told newsmen.
The first Academy Award was for a relatively small part in The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and the second for the role of a poor Chinese farm wife in The Good Earth (1937).
Rainer, who was born in Duesseldorf and grew up in Hamburg, was spotted by Hollywood talent scouts while working as a stage actress in Vienna.
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She quickly became a celebrity, billed in Hollywood as an Austrian so that audiences would not link her to Nazi Germany.
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But she cut her Hollywood career short at the end of the 1930s, complaining the U.S. film business would not give her demanding roles.
“It was all about money, money, money. But I wanted to play serious roles.
“I wanted to keep getting better, to keep learning,’’ the trained actress told newsmen in an interview on her 100th birthday in London.
She moved back to Europe, made one more film in 1943 and lived most of the remainder of her life in Switzerland.
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“Rainer died in London’s plush Belgravia district after a short illness,’’ the friend said.
Rainer’s second marriage was to Robert Knittel, a publisher who died in 1989.
They had one daughter who uses the stage name Francesca Bowyer.
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The friend said she would fly from her Beverly Hills home to London for the funeral. (dpa/NAN)
