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
Paulette Goddard: An Ideal Husband and Paris Model on TCM Paulette Goddard height: Supposedly 5’4″. Paulette Goddard age: Well… Goddard would have turned 108 today. Or 103. Or 102. Or 98. It all depends on the source, though Goddard herself apparently — and not at all surprisingly — preferred the 1915 birth date, which would have made her 98 years old in 2013. Whether a centenarian or a nonagenarian, Paulette Goddard is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Day. TCM has already shown several Goddard movies, among them Charles Chaplin’s Modern Times and the Luise Rainer star vehicle Dramatic School, and it’s currently showing An Ideal Husband. (Picture: Paulette Goddard publicity shot, ca. 1940.) Made in England for London Films, An Ideal Husband (1947) was quite a prestigious production so as to justify the presence of a top Hollywood star in a British film. No less a figure than London Films founder Alexander Korda directed this movie adaptation of...
- 6/3/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Hollywood actor best known for the Hardy family films and her role as Careen, Scarlett O'Hara's sister, in Gone With the Wind
Ann Rutherford, who has died aged 94, was adept at portraying pluck and persistence. As Polly Benedict, Andy Hardy's ever-faithful girlfriend, in 13 of the 15 Hardy family film series made between 1937 and 1946, she had to wait around for Mickey Rooney's accident-prone adolescent to return to her after some dalliance with another girl. Andy would seek advice on romance from his stern but wise and fair father, Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone). "Dad, can I talk to you man to man? Can a guy be in love with two girls at once?" Inevitably, Andy would realise, with hints from his dad, that Polly was his own true love.
The Hardy series, one of the most popular in screen history, was the archetypal idealisation of small-town America and apple-pie family values, with...
Ann Rutherford, who has died aged 94, was adept at portraying pluck and persistence. As Polly Benedict, Andy Hardy's ever-faithful girlfriend, in 13 of the 15 Hardy family film series made between 1937 and 1946, she had to wait around for Mickey Rooney's accident-prone adolescent to return to her after some dalliance with another girl. Andy would seek advice on romance from his stern but wise and fair father, Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone). "Dad, can I talk to you man to man? Can a guy be in love with two girls at once?" Inevitably, Andy would realise, with hints from his dad, that Polly was his own true love.
The Hardy series, one of the most popular in screen history, was the archetypal idealisation of small-town America and apple-pie family values, with...
- 6/12/2012
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
In Mason Wiley and Damien Bona's Inside Oscar, Luise Rainer is quoted as saying the following about winning back-to-back Best Actress Academy Awards for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937): "The industry seemed to feel that having an Academy Award winner on their hands was sufficient to overcome bad story material, which was often handed out afterwards to a star under long-term contract." Of course, "bad story material" was handed to contract players regardless of whether or not they had won Academy Awards. Just ask Ann Sheridan, Olivia de Havilland, Myrna Loy, and all those who went on suspension because they refused what they saw as subpar screenplays. Also, Rainer herself didn't fare too badly in 1938, the year she received her second Academy Award: her three releases that year were Robert B. Sinclair's Dramatic School, with Alan Marshal and Paulette Goddard; Julien Duvivier's The Great Waltz,...
- 3/11/2012
- 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
Paulette Goddard, Modern Times Paulette Goddard on TCM Part I: Modern Times, Reap The Wild Wind I've never watched Alexander Korda's British-made An Ideal Husband, a 1948 adaptation (by Lajos Biro) of Oscar Wilde's play, but it should be at least worth a look. The respectable cast includes Michael Wilding, Diana Wynyard, C. Aubrey Smith, Hugh Williams, Constance Collier, and Glynis Johns. George Cukor's film version of Clare Boothe Luce's hilarious The Women ("officially" adapted by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin) is definitely worth numerous looks; once or twice or even three times isn't/aren't enough to catch the machine-gun dialogue spewed forth by the likes of Goddard, Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, Mary Boland, Phyllis Povah, Lucile Watson, et al. A big hit at the time, The Women actually ended up in the red because of its high cost. Norma Shearer, aka The Widow Thalberg, was the nominal star; curiously,...
- 8/2/2011
- 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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