Luise Rainer, first to win consecutive Oscars for acting, dies

Luise Rainer, a star of cinema's golden era who won back-to-back Oscars but then walked away from a glittering Hollywood career, has died. She was 104. Rainer, whose roles ranged from the 1930s German stage to television's "The Love Boat," died Tuesday at her home in London from pneumonia, said her only daughter, Francesca Knittel-Bowyer.

The big-eyed, apple-cheeked Rainer gained Hollywood immortality by becoming the first person to win an acting Academy Award in consecutive years, taking the best actress prize for "The Great Ziegfeld" in 1936 in and "The Good Earth" in 1937. Rainer was born Jan. 12, 1910 in Vienna, Austria, according to her entry in the reference book "Who's Who," although some sources give her birthplace as Duesseldorf, Germany. She began her acting career as a teenager under innovative Austrian director Max Reinhardt and appeared in several German films.

In the mid-1930s she was discovered by a talent scout from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer on the lookout for new European beauties to rival Greta Garbo and whisked to Hollywood. Her first U.S. film was the largely forgotten "Escapade" (1935), but her next roles made her a star. Rainer may well have sobbed herself to her first Oscar, playing actress Anna Held, wife of impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, in "The Great Ziegfeld." The film featured a classic telephone scene during which, Anna, tears running down her face, congratulates her now ex-husband on his marriage to another actress. Her next Oscar was for playing a virtuous Chinese peasant in the screen adaptation of Pearl S. Buck's epic novel "The Good Earth."

Suddenly Rainer now nicknamed the "Viennese Teardrop" was famous, her beauty and emotional intensity winning many fans. But stardom, she later said, did not bring happiness. Rainer and Clifford Odets author of "Waiting for Lefty" and "Awake and Sing!" married in 1937 and divorced three tempestuous years later. In 1945, she married publisher Robert Knittel, who died in 1989. She's survived by her daughter with Knittel, and two granddaughters.

Rainer lived for many years in an apartment on London's genteel Eaton Square. Her entry in "Who's Who" listed her recreations as "formerly mountain climbing, now writing, painting." Four actors have matched Rainer's Oscar double in consecutive years: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Jason Robards and Tom Hanks.