Claude Rains: Difference between revisions

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'''William Claude Rains''' was a British character actor (1889-1967) and one of the most significant actors working in films in the middle of the twentieth century. Born in the Camberwell section of London, he overcame the handicaps of a [[British Accents|Cockney accent]] ''and'' a [[Speech Impediment|lisp]] to become a notable stage actor under the tutelage of the famous actor-manager, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who helped him to pay for elocution lessons. Ironically, his beautiful voice and the flawless diction he had acquired landed him his [[Star-Making Role|breakout role]] as the title character of the 1933 film of ''[[The Invisible Man (film)|The Invisible Man]]'' -- a film in which [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|his face does not appear]] until the closing scene. This part is referenced in a line from the opening number of ''[[The Rocky Horror Picture Show]]'', and in ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', where another [[Invisibility|invisible man]] is named for him.

In 1945, Rains was featured in the most expensive British film that had been made up to that time, playing opposite Vivien Leigh in [[George Bernard Shaw]]’s ''Caesar and Cleopatra'' under the supervision of Shaw himself; the film was, alas! a notorious bomb. The next year, a better form of ''[[Notorious]]'' under the direction of [[Alfred Hitchcock]] brought Rains his fourth and last [[Academy Award|Oscar]] nomination for the difficult part of a [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain|sympathetic]] post-war [[Those Wacky Nazis|Nazi]] conspirator.

 

 

* ''[[The Invisible Man (film)|The Invisible Man]]'', as Griffin, the title character (1933)

* ''Charles Dickens’ Mystery of Edwin Drood'', as John Jasper (1935)

* ''[[The Wolf Man]]'', as Sir John Talbot, the [[Wolf Man]]’s father (1941)

* ''[[Casablanca]]'', as Captain Louis Renault, the Prefect of Police (1942)

* ''[[Phantom of the Opera|The Phantom of the Opera]]'', as Erique Claudin, the Phantom (1943)

* ''[[Mr. Skeffington]]'', as [[Meaningful Name|Job]] Skeffington (1944)

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[[Category:Actors]]