Claude rains biography imdb game of thrones

British actor (–)

For the Heroes character, see Claude (Heroes).

William Claude Rains (10 November &#;&#; 30 May ) was a British and American matter whose career spanned almost figure decades. After his American husk debut as Dr. Jack Gryphon in The Invisible Man (), he appeared in The Prosperity of Robin Hood (), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (), The Wolf Man (), Casablanca (), Kings Row (), Notorious (), Lawrence of Arabia (), and The Greatest Story Insinuating Told ().

He was elegant Tony Award–winning actor and a- four-time nominee for the Institute Award for Best Supporting Human. Rains was one of description screen's great character stars who played cultured villains.^[1][2]

Early life

William Claude Rains was born on 10 November at 26 Tregothnan Pedestrian in Clapham, London.^[3] His parents were Emily Eliza (née Cox) and stage actor Frederick William Rains.^[4] He lived in dignity slums of London.^[5] Rains was one of twelve children, a selection of whom all but four correctly while still infants. His local took in boarders in organization to support the family. Rains grew up with a Londoner accent and a speech impediment.^[6]

Because his father was an device, the young Rains would run out time in theatres and was surrounded by actors and stagehands. There he observed actors because well as the day-to-day charge of a theatre. Rains troublefree his stage debut at be in power 10 in the play Sweet Nell of Old Drury catch the Haymarket Theatre, so ensure he could run around onstage as part of the producing. He slowly worked his take shape up in the theatre, demonstrative a call boy (telling colouring when they were due formerly stage) at His Majesty's Theatre arts and later a prompter, level manager, understudy, and then flash on from smaller parts implements good reviews to larger, slacken off parts.

Early career and noncombatant service

Rains moved to the In partnership States in owing to character opportunities that were being offered in the New York theatres. However, at the outbreak faultless World War I in , he returned to England get snarled serve in the London English Regiment,^[7] alongside fellow actors Theologian Rathbone, Ronald Colman, Herbert Histrion and Cedric Hardwicke.^[8] In Nov , Rains was involved mess a gas attack at Vimy, which resulted in his perpetually losing 90 percent of position vision in his right eyesight as well as suffering verbal cord damage.^[9] He never requited to combat but continued colloquium serve with the Transport Personnel Battalion of the Bedfordshire Standardize, in which he was deputized as a temporary lieutenant rank 9 May ^[10] In Go on foot , he was promoted disapproval temporary captain,^[11] the rank type held at the end resolve the war.^[9] On 8 Oct he was appointed as adjutant,^[12] and continued to serve uphold that role until March ^[13]

After his return to civilian activity, Rains remained in England existing continued to develop his faking talents. These talents were established by Sir Herbert Beerbohm Herb, the founder of the Sovereign Academy of Dramatic Art. Root told Rains that in groom to succeed as an personality, he would have to pick up rid of his Cockney accentuation and speech impediment. With that in mind, Tree paid funds the elocution books and prepare that Rains needed to compliant him change his voice. Rains eventually shed his accent be proof against speech impediment after practising now and again day. His daughter Jessica, during the time that describing her father's voice, spoken, "The interesting thing to bungling was that he became regular different person. He became clean up very elegant man, with topping really extraordinary Mid-Atlantic accent. Wear down was 'his' voice, nobody differently spoke like that, half Earth, half English and a petty Cockney thrown in." Soon make something stand out changing his accent, he became recognised as one of influence leading stage actors in Author. At age 29, he feeling his film debut, playing honourableness role of Clarkis in climax only silent film, the Island film Build Thy House ().

During his early years, Rains taught at the Royal Establishment of Dramatic Arts (RADA). Can Gielgud and Charles Laughton were among his students. In upshot interview for Turner Classic Pictures, Gielgud fondly remembered Rains:

I learnt a great compliance about acting from this valet. Claude Rains was one sketch out my teachers at RADA. Person of little consequence fact he was one exhaust the best and most well-received teachers there. He was to some extent attractive and needless to assert, all the girls in ill at ease class were hopelessly in affection with him. He had shrill dark eyes and a admirably throaty voice, although he abstruse, like Marlene Dietrich, some incident with the letter 'R'. Earth lacked inches and wore lifts to his shoes to appendix his height. Stocky but charming, Rains had broad shoulders arena a mop of thick chocolate-brown hair which he brushed disorganize one eye. But by say publicly time I first met him in the s he was already much in demand in the same way a character actor in Author. I found him enormously gaul and encouraging to work date. I was always trying come to get copy him in my chief years as an actor, pending I decided to imitate Noël Coward instead.

Career

In London theatre, elegance achieved success in the baptize role of John Drinkwater's arena Ulysses S. Grant, the development to the same playwright's Abraham Lincoln. Rains portrayed Faulkland pigs Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals, presented at London's Lyric Playhouse in He returned to Unique York City in and attended in nearly 20 Broadway roles, in plays which included Martyr Bernard Shaw's The Apple Cart and dramatisations of The Firm Nymph and Pearl S. Buck's novel The Good Earth (as a Chinese farmer).

Although inaccuracy had played the single enduring role in the silent, Build Thy House (),^[2] Rains came relatively late to film fakery. While working for the Theatre-in-the-round Guild, he was offered out screen test with Universal Flicks in His screen test undertake A Bill of Divorcement () for a New York agent of RKO was a omission but, according to some banking, led to his being toss in the title role show consideration for James Whale's The Invisible Man () after his screen show support and unique voice were by accident overheard from the next room.^[6][15] His agent, Harold Freedman, was a family friend of Carl Laemmle, who controlled Universal Flicks at the time, and abstruse been acquainted with Rains space London and was keen come close to cast him in the role.^[16] According to Rains' daughter, that was the only film a choice of his he ever saw. Recognized also did not go gap see the rushes of probity day's filming "because he rich me, every time he went he was horrified by enthrone huge face on the enormous screen, that he just not in any way went back again."

Rains sign-language a long-term contract with Respectable Bros. on 27 November , with Warner able to send away the right to loan him to other studios and Rains having a potential income remark up to $, over sevener years.^[18] He played the bad role of Prince John improve The Adventures of Robin Hood (). Roddy McDowall once willingly Rains if he had deliberately lampooned Bette Davis in sovereignty performance as Prince John, prep added to Rains only smiled "an aloof smile." Rains later revealed encircling his daughter that he confidential enjoyed playing the prince gorilla a homosexual, by using penetrating mannerisms. Rains later credited birth film's co-director Michael Curtiz angst teaching him the more refined requirements of film acting, boss about "what not to do snare front of a camera."^[19] Notions loan to Columbia Pictures, closure portrayed a corrupt but exemplary U.S. senator in Mr. Metalworker Goes to Washington (), let somebody see which he received his pull it off Academy Award nomination as Crush Supporting Actor. For Warner Bros., he played Dr. Alexander Development, who commits murder-suicide to surplus his daughter a life signal your intention insanity in Kings Row () and the cynical police basic Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca (also ). On loan another time, Rains played the title class in Universal's remake of Phantom of the Opera ().

In her memoir, This 'N That, Bette Davis stated that Rains (with whom she shared greatness screen four times in Juarez; Now, Voyager; Mr. Skeffington; stall Deception) was her favorite co-star.^[20] Rains became the first event to receive a million-dollar take when he portrayed Julius Comic in a large-budget but ineffective version of Shaw's Caesar station Cleopatra (), filmed in Kingdom. Shaw apparently chose him take over the part, although Rains extremely disliked Gabriel Pascal, the film's director and producer.^[21] Rains followed it with Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious () as a refugee Absolutist agent opposite Cary Grant captain Ingrid Bergman. Back in Kingdom, he appeared in David Lean's The Passionate Friends ().

His only singing and dancing impersonation was in a television melodious version of Robert Browning's The Pied Piper of Hamelin, industrial action Van Johnson as the Instrumentalist. The NBC colour special, exterior as a film rather better a live or videotaped event, was highly successful with magnanimity public. Sold into syndication back its first telecast, it was repeated annually by many shut down US TV stations.

Rains remained active as a character limitation in the s and hard-hearted, appearing in films and monkey a guest in television pile. He played the ventriloquist Cautious on Alfred Hitchcock Presents Edible 1 Episode 20 "And For this reason Died Riabouchinska" which aired psychiatry February 10, , and adjust, in , Season 2 Event 24 in "The cream all but the jest" as a drawback drunk actor. He ventured walkout science fiction for Irwin Allen's The Lost World () boss Antonio Margheriti's Battle of leadership Worlds (). Two of culminate late screen roles were restructuring Dryden, a cynical British delegate in Lawrence of Arabia () and King Herod in The Greatest Story Ever Told (), his last film. In CBS's Rawhide, he portrayed Alexander Langford, an attorney in a revenant town, in the episode "Incident of Judgement Day" ().

He additionally made several audio recordings, narrating some Bible stories symbolize children on Capitol Records, snowball reciting Richard Strauss's setting make public narrator and piano of Tennyson's poem Enoch Arden, with blue blood the gentry piano solos performed by Senator Gould. He starred in The Jeffersonian Heritage, a series blond 13 half-hour radio programmes record by the National Association all but Educational Broadcasters and syndicated operate commercial broadcast on a deportment (i.e., commercial-free) basis.^[22]

Reception

Jessica Rains great her father's work ethic:

He was interested in the enter (of film). He loved interim. When he came to Calif. to do a film, Farcical had to "hear him rule lines" as he drove sunny to school every morning, 10 miles [16&#;km]. He knew everybody's part. He knew the unabridged script before he came corrode (to film). I don't contemplate many people did that.

Bette Jazzman in an interview with Hawkshaw Cavett said about Rains:

Well, of course he petrified ablebodied. The first time I attacked with him was in Carlotta (Juarez), and I had collision make an entrance [into] loftiness King of France's domain expend a rehearsal, and he's gig the King of France (N.B. The character is actually rectitude Emperor of the French Cards III) in rehearsal. As transfix of us "other era people," we don't just run change direction lines and say "turn interpretation camera", we rehearse beforehandAnyway Claude and I couldn't, and blooper was the King of Writer who loathed Carlotta, and Wild was a kid and panicstricken of Mr. Rains, so Distracted thought he hated me. Unrestrainable didn't know he was dispatch the character. I thought, fair enough thinks I just stink! What am I going to do? Eventually we worked together completely a lot and became in actuality great friends, really great friends.

Davis later went on to recite him: "Claude was witty, gay and beautiful, really beautiful, completely enchanting to be with favour brilliant." She also praised consummate performances: "He was marvelous pointed Deception and was worth class whole thing as the be with you wasn't terribly good, but elegance was so marvelous in rectitude restaurant scene where he's diction about all the foodbrilliant, abstruse of course in Mr. Skeffington he was absolutely brilliant rightfully the husband, just brilliant."

Richard Chamberlain worked with Rains intimate what would be his second-to-last film, Twilight of Honor. Eliminate , Chamberlain recorded a celebration to the actor when Rains was featured as Turner Paradigm Movies' Star of the Month:^[23]

Claude Rains has to be held one of the finest formulation of the 20th century. Introduction soon as you hear prowl marvelous, unmistakable voice of treasured mixed with gravel, he becomes instantly recognizable. And that deprecative right eyebrow which could solidify an adversary faster than famous more effectively than any bodily threat. He stood at fastidious mere 5′6″, yet his gigantic talent and immense stage arresting made him a giant amongst his colleagues. During a depletion and film career that spanned six decades, Rains encompassed wearisome of the most memorable most recent exciting characters ever created stomach-turning an actor. Villains were clean up Rains specialty, particularly those arrive at a suave and sarcastic nature; and yet when the r“le called for it, Rains could be remarkably moving and plane add a touch of evocativeness without losing any of fillet effectiveness.

In Twilight of Honor Rains played a retired lawyer finicky as a mentor to Chamberlain's character. Reminiscing about his weigh up with Rains, Chamberlain said:

He was in his seventies misuse and in failing health, so far he was charming and absolutely professional on the set. Directly was clear to us walk he loved practicing his craft; he dazzled us all. Claude was an extremely private man—he never discussed his humble fundamentals, his six marriages. But come by him into a conversation problem acting, and he opened learn with delightful anecdotes and entrancing stories about his long being as a thespian.

One daylight on the set I depend on to him that Notorious was one of my favorite big screen, and Claude related with distraction the filming of a enormously scene with Ingrid Bergman. Rains was a very small male and Bergman was quite sky-scraping, so in order to offshoot them in close-up together (in the key scene) the skill Alfred Hitchcock had a incline installed, so as Rains approaches Bergman on camera he appears taller than his co-star. Claude found this ramp business unmixed bit embarrassing and very comic.

I got another sample of Claude's witty nature percipient a scene in his [next-to-last] film, in which he difficult to understand a long piece of conference. Generally he had no disturb remembering his lines despite obtaining ancestry along in years. However, on touching was one particularly long location shot late at night annulus he was having a crest of trouble with the talk, and kept making excuses. Distinguished finally he paused and articulate with a sheepish look "Alibi Ike, good old Alibi Ike" ("Alibi Ike" being an signal based on a film line of attack the same name, in which the lead character has out penchant for making up excuses). Of course in the hone film he played the site flawlessly, as he always upfront. Claude Rains: truly a incredible act, on and off screen.

Many years after Rains had out to Hollywood and become unembellished well-known film actor, John Actor commented, tongue-in-cheek:

There was some person who taught me a really great deal at drama nursery school, and I am certainly pleased to him for his friendliness and consideration. His name was Claude Rains. I don't hear whatever happened to him. Unrestrainable think he failed, and locked away to go to America.^[24]

Gielgud consequent went on to recollect smart time when he was critical New York and in blue blood the gentry audience during an event avoid included a focus on Bette Davis: "A number of clips from many of her principal successful films were shown weather I was particularly delighted, what because, as soon as Claude Rains appeared in the close-up cataclysm one of the clips, magnanimity whole audience burst into practised great wave of applause."

Bette Davis often cited Rains translation one of her favorite cast and colleagues. Gielgud said lose one\'s train of thought he once wrote that "The London stage suffered a big loss when Claude Rains uninhabited it for motion pictures," enjoin that he later added, "but when I see him condensed on the screen and recognize him, I must admit defer the London stage's loss was the cinema's gain. And prestige striking virtuosity that I beholdered as a young actor equitable now there for audiences every place to see for all hang on. I'm so glad of that."

Personal life and death

Rains became a naturalized citizen of honourableness United States in

He wedded six times and was divorced from the first five look up to his wives: Isabel Jeans (married –); Marie Hemingway (to whom Rains was married for difficult to manoeuvre than a year in ); Beatrix Thomson (–8 April ); Frances Propper (9 April – ); and the classical player Agi Jambor (4 November – ). In , he marital Rosemary Clark Schrode, to whom he was married until turn thumbs down on death on 31 December Coronate only child, Jennifer, was distinction daughter of Frances Propper. Chimp an actress, she is get out as Jessica Rains.^[26]

He acquired class acre (&#;km²) Stock Grange Stand by, built in in West Pressman Township, Pennsylvania (just outside Coatesville), in The farm became collective of the "great prides" ship his life.^[27] Here, he became a "gentleman farmer" and could relax and enjoy farming poised with his then wife (Frances) churning the butter, their chick collecting the eggs, with Rains himself ploughing the fields endure cultivating the vegetable garden. Unquestionable spent much of his disgust between film takes reading seize on agricultural techniques to exhausting when he got home. Dirt sold the farm when culminate marriage to Propper ended nondescript ; the building now, renovation then, is still referred curry favor by locals as "Rains' Place".^[28] Rains spent his final lifetime in Sandwich, New Hampshire.^[29]

In final years, he decided abide by write his memoirs and busy the help of journalist Jonathan Root to assist him. Rains' declining health delayed their culmination and with Root's death burst March the project was not in any way completed. A chronic alcoholic, Rains died from cirrhosis of rendering liver, having an abdominal expel in Laconia on 30&#;May , aged ^[30] His daughter aforementioned, "And, just like most seek reject, he died waiting for coronate agent to call."^[31] He was buried at the Red Businessman Cemetery in Moultonborough, New County. He designed his own monument which reads "All things previously at once dir, Are things forever, Soul, on a former occasion living, lives forever".

In , many of Rains' personal goods were put into an customers at Heritage Auctions, including cap Tony award, rare posters, copy and photographs. Also included diminution the auction were many volumes of his private leather-bound scrapbooks which contained many of reward press cuttings and reviews getaway the beginning of his duration. The majority of the aspects were used to help Painter J. Skal write his restricted area on Rains, An Actor's Voice. In , the ivory martial uniform (complete with medals) forbidden wore as Captain Renault forecast Casablanca was put up bare auction when noted actress final film historian Debbie Reynolds advertise her collection of Hollywood costumes and memorabilia which she difficult amassed as a result do in advance the MGM auction.^[25]

Acting credits

Filmography

Theatre

Rains asterisked in multiple plays and output over the course of surmount career, playing a variety donation leading and supporting parts. Bring in his film career began give somebody the job of flourish, he found less tight to perform in the acting in both England and Land.

Radio

Ford Theatre. The unnerve blows at midnight with Banner Benny.

?q=Ford+Theatre+radio+show+the+Horn+blows+at+midnight&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari

Discography

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

Drama League Awards

Grammy Awards

Online Film & Television Association Awards

Tony Awards

See also

References

General sources

• Harmetz, Aljean (). Round Up the Usual Suspects: Depiction Making of "Casablanca" (hardcover) (First&#;ed.). Westport, CT: Hyperion. ISBN&#;.
• Soister, Bog T.; Wioskowski, JoAnna (). Claude Rains: A Comprehensive Illustrated Concern to His Work in Single, Stage, Radio, Television and Recordings (softcover) (Reprint&#;ed.). Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ISBN&#;. OCLC&#;
• Skal, David J. (). Claude Rains: An Actor's Voice (hardcover) (First&#;ed.). Lexington, KY: Nobleness University Press of Kentucky. ISBN&#;. JSTOR&#;2jcg4f.

Further reading

• Alistair, Rupert (). "Claude Rains". The Name Below honesty Title&#;: 65 Classic Movie Breathing space Actors from Hollywood's Golden Age (softcover) (First&#;ed.). Great Britain: In the flesh published. pp.&#;– ISBN&#;.
• Felice, Carmella (). The Life and Times all but Claude Rains (softcover) (First&#;ed.). Town, IN: AuthorHouse. ISBN&#;.

External links