Claude Rains

He became a leading thespian on the West End, and an acting teacher at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. He moved to the United States in the late 1920s and became a successful Broadway star, before making his American film debut as Dr. Jack Griffin in The Invisible Man (1933). He went on to play prominent roles in such big-screen productions as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), The Wolf Man (1941), Casablanca (1942), Kings Row (1942), Phantom of the Opera (1943) and Notorious (1946). In 1951, he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performance in Darkness at Noon. He continued to work as a prominent character actor in films, notably as Mr. Dryden in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and his final role in the Biblical epic The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). In 1960, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to the film industry. Richard Chamberlain described him as "one of the finest actors of the 20th century," while Bette Davis considered him one of her favorite co-stars.

• Name — Claude Rains • Birth Name — William Claude Rains • Born — 10 November 1889 • Birthplace — London, England • Died — 30 May 1967 • Place of death — Laconia, New Hampshire, US • Citizenship — * UK • US (after 1939) • Education — Royal Academy of Dramatic Art • Occupation — Actor • Years Active — 1900–1965 • Children — 1 • Father — Fred Rains

William Claude Rains was born on 10 November 1889 at 26 Tregothnan Road in Clapham, London. His parents were Emily Eliza (née Cox) and stage actor Frederick William Rains. He lived in the slums of London. Rains was one of twelve children, of whom all but four died while still infants. His mother took in boarders in order to support the family. Rains grew up with a Cockney accent and a speech impediment. • Illustration — Rains in his captain's uniform during the First World War Because his father was an actor, the young Rains spent time in theatres and was surrounded by actors and stagehands. There he observed actors as well as the day-to-day running of a theatre. Rains made his stage debut at age 10 in the play Sweet Nell of Old Drury at the Haymarket Theatre, so that he could run around onstage as part of the production. He slowly worked his way up in the theatre, becoming a call boy (telling actors when they were due onstage) at His Majesty's Theatre and later a prompter, stage manager, understudy, and then moving on from smaller parts with good reviews to larger, better parts. • Illustration — A 23-year-old Rains in one of his early theatre roles, 1912

Rains moved to the United States in 1912 owing to the opportunities that were being offered in the New York theatres. However, at the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he returned to England and was commissioned into the British Army's London Scottish regiment, alongside fellow actors Basil Rathbone, Ronald Colman, Herbert Marshall and Cedric Hardwicke. In November 1916, Rains was involved in a gas attack at Vimy, which resulted in his permanently losing 90 percent of the vision in his right eye as well as suffering vocal cord damage. He never returned to combat but continued to serve with the Transport Workers Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment, in which he was commissioned as a temporary lieutenant on 9 May 1917. In March 1918, he was promoted to temporary captain, the rank he held at the end of the war. On 8 October 1918 he was appointed as adjutant, and continued to serve in that role until March 1919. After his return to civilian life, Rains remained in England and continued to develop his acting talents. These talents were recognised by Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, the founder of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Tree told Rains that in order to succeed as an actor, he would have to get rid of his Cockney accent and speech impediment. With this in mind, Tree paid for the elocution books and lessons that Rains needed to help him change his voice. Rains eventually shed his accent and speech impediment after practising every day. His daughter Jessica, when describing her father's voice, said, "The interesting thing to me was that he became a different person. He became a very elegant man, with a really extraordinary Mid-Atlantic accent. It was 'his' voice, nobody else spoke like that, half American, half English and a little Cockney thrown in." Soon after changing his accent, he became recognised as one of the leading stage actors in London. At age 29, he made his film debut, playing the role of Clarkis in his only silent film, the British film Build Thy House (1920). During his early years, Rains taught at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA). John Gielgud and Charles Laughton were among his students.

In London theatre, he achieved success in the title role of John Drinkwater's play Ulysses S. Grant, the follow-up to the same playwright's Abraham Lincoln. Rains portrayed Faulkland in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The Rivals, presented at London's Lyric Theatre in 1925. He returned to New York City in 1927 and appeared in nearly 20 Broadway roles, in plays which included George Bernard Shaw's The Apple Cart and dramatisations of The Constant Nymph and Pearl S. Buck's novel The Good Earth (as a Chinese farmer). • Illustration — Rains with Mary Kennedy in Camel Through the Needle's Eye on Broadway, New York City, 1929 • Illustration — Publicity portrait for the 1934 film The Man Who Reclaimed His Head Although he had played the single supporting role in the silent, Build Thy House (1920), Rains came relatively late to film acting. While working for the Theatre Guild, he was offered a screen test with Universal Pictures in 1932. His screen test for A Bill of Divorcement (1932) for a New York representative of RKO was a failure but, according to some accounts, led to his being cast in the title role of James Whale's The Invisible Man (1933) after his screen test and unique voice were inadvertently overheard from the next room. His agent, Harold Freedman, was a family friend of Carl Laemmle, who controlled Universal Pictures at the time, and had been acquainted with Rains in London and was keen to cast him in the role. According to Rains' daughter, this was the only film of his he ever saw. He also did not go to see the rushes of the day's filming "because he told me, every time he went he was horrified by his huge face on the huge screen, that he just never went back again." Rains signed a long-term contract with Warner Bros. on 27 November 1935, with Warner able to exercise the right to lend him to other studios and Rains having a potential income of up to $750,000 over seven years. He played the villainous role of Prince John in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Roddy McDowall once asked Rains if he had intentionally lampooned Bette Davis in his performance as Prince John, and Rains only smiled "an enigmatic smile." Rains later revealed to his daughter that he had enjoyed playing the prince as a homosexual, by using subtle mannerisms. Rains later credited the film's co-director Michael Curtiz with teaching him the more understated requirements of film acting, or "what not to do in front of a camera." On loan to Columbia Pictures, he portrayed a corrupt but honourable US senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), for which he received his first Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor. For Warner Bros., he played Dr. Alexander Tower, who commits murder-suicide to spare his daughter a life of insanity in Kings Row (1942) and the cynical police chief Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca (also 1942). On loan again, Rains played the title character in Universal's remake of Phantom of the Opera (1943). In her 1987 memoir, This 'N That, Bette Davis stated that Rains (with whom she shared the screen four times in Juarez; Now, Voyager; Mr. Skeffington; and Deception) was her favorite co-star. Rains became the first actor to receive a million-dollar salary when he portrayed Julius Caesar in a large-budget but unsuccessful version of Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), filmed in Britain. Shaw apparently chose him for the part, although Rains intensely disliked Gabriel Pascal, the film's director and producer. Rains followed it with Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946) as a refugee Nazi agent opposite Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman. Back in Britain, he appeared in David Lean's The Passionate Friends (1949). • Illustration — Rains in Notorious (1946) His only singing and dancing role was in a 1957 television musical version of Robert Browning's The Pied Piper of Hamelin, with Van Johnson as the Piper. The NBC colour special, broadcast as a film rather than a live or videotaped programme, was highly successful with the public. Sold into syndication after its first telecast, it was repeated annually by many local US TV stations. Rains remained active as a character actor in the 1950s and 1960s, appearing in films and as a guest in television series. He played the ventriloquist Fabian on Alfred Hitchcock Presents Season 1 Episode 20 "And So Died Riabouchinska" which aired on February 10, 1956, and again, in 1957, Season 2 Episode 24 in "The cream of the jest" as a failing drunk actor. He ventured into science fiction for Irwin Allen's The Lost World (1960) and Antonio Margheriti's Battle of the Worlds (1961). Two of his late screen roles were as Dryden, a cynical British diplomat in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and King Herod in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), his last film. In CBS's Rawhide, he portrayed Alexander Langford, an attorney in a ghost town, in the episode "Incident of Judgement Day" (1963). He additionally made several audio recordings, narrating some Bible stories for children on Capitol Records, and reciting Richard Strauss's setting for narrator and piano of Tennyson's poem Enoch Arden, with the piano solos performed by Glenn Gould. He starred in The Jeffersonian Heritage, a 1952 series of 13 half-hour radio programmes recorded by the National Association of Educational Broadcasters and syndicated for commercial broadcast on a sustaining (i.e., commercial-free) basis.

• Illustration — The ivory military uniform Rains wore in Casablanca was sold at auction in 2011 for $55,000. Rains became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1939. He married six times and divorced five times: Isabel Jeans (1913-1915), Marie Hemingway (1920-1920), Beatrix Thomson (1924-1935), Frances Propper (1935-1956), and Agi Jambor (1959-1960). In 1960, he married Rosemary Clark Schrode, to whom he was married until her death in December 1964. His only child, Jennifer, was the daughter of Frances Propper. As an actress, she is known as Jessica Rains. In 1941, Rains acquired the 380 acre Stock Grange Farm, built in 1747 in West Bradford Township, Pennsylvania. Rains spent his final years in Sandwich, New Hampshire. A chronic alcoholic, Rains died from cirrhosis of the liver, having an abdominal hemorrhage in Laconia on 30May 1967, aged 77. He was buried at the Red Hill Cemetery in Moultonborough, New Hampshire. In 2010, many of Rains' personal effects were put into an auction at Heritage Auctions, including his 1951 Tony award, rare posters, letters, photographs and volumes of his private leather-bound scrapbooks which contained his press cuttings and reviews from his career. In 2011, the ivory military uniform and medals he wore as Captain Renault in Casablanca auctioned when noted actress and film historian Debbie Reynolds sold her collection of Hollywood costumes and memorabilia which she had amassed as a result of the 1970 MGM auction.

Rains starred in multiple plays and productions over the course of his career, playing a variety of leading and supporting parts. As his film career began to flourish, he found less time to perform in the theatre in both England and America. • Year — Title — Role(s) — Venue — Notes — Ref. • 1900 — Sweet Nell of Old Drury — Haymarket Theatre — Stage debut, aged 10 as an "unbilled child extra "running around a fountain." • 1901 — Herod — His Majesty's Theatre — Unbilled • 1904 — Last of the Dandies — Winkles — Rains' debut speaking role in the theatre • 1911 — The Gods of the Mountain — Thahn — Haymarket Theatre — Shared role with Reginald Owen • 1912-13 — Typhoon — Omayi — First heavy character role • 1913 — The Green Cockatoo — Grasset — Aldwych Theatre — Also stage manager • 1919 — Reparation — Ivan Petrovitch — St. James's Theatre — Also stage manager • Uncle Ned — Mears — Lyceum Theatre — Marked Rains' return to the stage after being wounded in WWI • 1919-20 — The Jest — Prince's Theatre, Bristol • 1920 — Julius Caesar — Casca — St. James's Theatre • 1921-22 — Will Shakespeare — Shaftesbury Theatre • 1922 — The Bat — Billy — St. James's Theatre • 1922-23 — The Rumour — Globe Theatre • Pictures from the Insects' Life — Lepidopterist, Parasite, Chief Engineer — Regent Theatre • 1923 — Robert E. Lee — David Peel • Good Luck — Earl of Trenton — Theatre Royal, Drury Lane • Reparation — Royal Academy of Dramatic Art — As director • 1925 — The Rivals — Faulkland — Lyric Hammersmith • 1926 — The Government Inspector — The Inspector — Gaiety Theatre — Professional debut of his RADA student, Charles Laughton • 1926 — Made in Heaven — Martin Walmer — Everyman Theatre, London — Rains' last appearance on the London Stage. • 1927 — The Constant Nymph — Roberto — Selwyn Theatre — Replacement, Broadway debut • Lally — Lally — Greenwich Village Theatre • Out of the Sea — Arthur Logris — Eltinge Theatre • 1929 — The Camel Through the Needle's Eye — Joseph Vilim — Martin Beck Theatre, Guild Theatre • 1929-30 — The Game of Love and Death — Lazare Carnot — Guild Theatre • 1930 — The Apple Cart — Proteus — Martin Beck Theatre • Alvin Theatre • 1931 — Miracle at Verdun — Heydner, Messenger, Lamparenne — Martin Beck Theatre • He — Elevator Man — Guild Theatre • 1932 — The Moon in the Yellow River — Dobelle • Too True to Be Good — The Elder • The Man Who Reclaimed His Head — Paul Verin — Broadhurst Theatre • The Good Earth — Wang Lung — Guild Theatre • 1933 — American Dream — Ezekial Bell • 1951 — Darkness at Noon — Rubashov — Alvin Theatre — Won Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play • Royale Theatre • 1954 — The Confidential Clerk — Sir Claude Mulhammer — Morosco Theatre • 1956 — Night of the Auk — Dr. Bruner — Playhouse Theatre

• Year — Title — Role — Notes • 1953 — Medallion Theatre — 2 episodes • 1954 — Omnibus — Father — Episode: "The Confidential Clerk" • 1956 — Kraft Television Theatre — Narrator — Episode: "A Night to Remember" • The Alcoa Hour — Paul Westman — Episode:"The President" • The Kaiser Aluminum Hour — Creon — Episode: "Antigone" • Eye on New York — Dr. Bruner — Episode: "Night of the Auk" • 1957 — On Borrowed Time — Mr. Brink — TV movie • The Pied Piper of Hamelin — Mayor of Hamelin • 1956-62 — Alfred Hitchcock Presents — Various roles — 5 episodes • 1959 — Once Upon a Christmas Time — John Woodcutter — TV movie • Playhouse 90 — Judge Haywood — Episode: "Judgment at Nuremberg" • 1960 — Hallmark Hall of Fame — High Lama — Episode: "Shangri-La" • Naked City — John Winfield Weston — Episode: "To Walk in Silence" • Mel-O-Toons — Narrator (voice) — Episode: "David and Goliath" • 1962 — Wagon Train — Judge Daniel Clay — Episode: "The Daniel Clay Story" • Sam Benedict — Thonis Jundelin — Episode: "Nor Practice Makes Perfect" • 1962-63 — The DuPont Show of the Week — Colonel, Baron van der Zost — 2 episodes • 1963 — Rawhide — Alexander Longford — Episode: "Incident of Judgement Day" • 1963-65 — Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre — Mr. Fare, Valentin — 2 episodes • 1964 — Dr. Kildare — Edward Fredericks — Episode: "Why Won't Anyone Listen?" • The Reporter — John Vance — Episode: "A Time to Be Silent"

• Year — Programme — Episode/source • 1949 — Ford Theatre — The Horn Blows at Midnight • 1952 — Cavalcade of America — Three Words

His recorded language was English. He was the child of Fred Rains. He married Isabel Jeans, Marie Hemingway and Beatrix Thomson.

• Year — Title — Role — Director — Notes • 1920 — Build Thy House — Clarkis — Fred — Film debut • 1933 — The Invisible Man — Dr. Jack Griffin/The Invisible Man — James • 1934 — Crime Without Passion — Lee Gentry — Ben, Charles MacArthur • The Man Who Reclaimed His Head — Paul Verin — Edward • 1935 — The Mystery of Edwin Drood — John Jasper — Stuart • The Clairvoyant — Maximus — Maurice • The Last Outpost — John Stevenson — Louis, Charles Barton • 1936 — Hearts Divided — Napoleon Bonaparte — Frank • Anthony Adverse — Marquis Don Luis — Mervyn • 1937 — Stolen Holiday — Stefan Orloff — Michael • The Prince and the Pauper — Earl of Hertford — William • They Won't Forget — District Attorney Andrew J. "Andy" Griffin — Mervyn • 1938 — White Banners — Paul Ward — Edmund • Gold is Where You Find It — Colonel Christopher "Chris" Ferris — Michael • The Adventures of Robin Hood — Prince John • Four Daughters — Adam Lemp • 1939 — They Made Me a Criminal — Detective Monty Phelan — Busby • Juarez — Emperor Louis Napoleon III — William • Sons of Liberty — Haym Salomon — Michael — Two-reel short • Daughters Courageous — Jim Masters • Mr. Smith Goes to Washington — Senator Joseph Harrison Paine — Frank — Nominated- Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor • Four Wives — Adam Lemp — Michael • 1940 — Saturday's Children — Mr. Henry Halevy — Vincent • The Sea Hawk — Don José Álvarez de Córdoba — Michael • Lady with Red Hair — David Belasco — Curtis • 1941 — Four Mothers — Adam Lemp — William • Here Comes Mr. Jordan — Mr. Jordan — Alexander • The Wolf Man — Sir John Talbot — George • 1942 — Kings Row — Dr. Alexander Tower — Sam • Moontide — Nutsy — Archie • Now, Voyager — Dr. Jaquith — Irving • Casablanca — Captain Louis Renault — Michael — Nominated- Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor • 1943 — Forever and a Day — Ambrose Pomfret — Herbert (sequence with Rains) • Phantom of the Opera — Erique Claudin/The Phantom of the Opera — Arthur • 1944 — Passage to Marseille — Captain Freycinet — Michael • Mr. Skeffington — Job Skeffington — Vincent — Nominated- Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor • 1945 — Strange Holiday — John Stevenson — Arch Oboler • This Love of Ours — Joseph Targel — William • Caesar and Cleopatra — Julius Caesar — Gabriel • 1946 — Notorious — Alexander Sebastian — Alfred — Nominated- Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor • Angel on My Shoulder — Nick — Archie • Deception — Alexander Hollenius — Irving • 1947 — The Unsuspected — Victor Grandison — Michael • 1949 — The Passionate Friends — Howard Justin — David • Rope of Sand — Arthur "Fred" Martingale — William • Song of Surrender — Elisha Hunt — Mitchell • 1950 — The White Tower — Paul DeLambre — Ted • Where Danger Lives — Frederick Lannington — John • 1951 — Sealed Cargo — Captain Skalder — Alfred L. • 1952 — The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By — Kees Popinga — Harold • 1956 — Lisbon — Aristides Mavros — Ray • 1959 — This Earth Is Mine — Philippe Rambeau — Henry • 1960 — The Lost World — Professor George Edward Challenger — Irwin • 1961 — Battle of the Worlds — Professor Benson — Antonio • 1962 — Lawrence of Arabia — Mr. Dryden — David • 1963 — Twilight of Honor — Art Harper — Boris • 1965 — The Greatest Story Ever Told — Herod the Great — George

• Year — Honor — Result — Ref. • 2023 — Film Hall of Fame: Actors — Inducted

• Year — Category — Nominated work — Result — Ref. • 1939 — Best Supporting Actor — Mr. Smith Goes to Washington • 1943 — Casablanca • 1944 — Mr. Skeffington • 1946 — Notorious

• Year — Category — Nominated work — Result — Ref. • 1951 — Distinguished Performance Award — Darkness at Noon

• Year — Category — Nominated work — Result — Ref. • 1962 — Best Documentary or Spoken Word Recording (Other Than Comedy) — Enoch Arden

• Year — Category — Nominated work — Result — Ref. • 1951 — Best Actor in a Play — Darkness at Noon

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