39,327
edits
Claude Rains: Difference between revisions
m
Mass update links
(clean up) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 6:
<!-- %% One quote is sufficient. Please place additional entries on the quotes tab. -->
'''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
A series of more or less macabre parts followed, such as the murderer John Jasper in the first sound film adaptation of [[Charles Dickens (Creator)|Charles Dickens]]' ''[[The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Literature)|The Mystery of Edwin Drood]]''. Rains's cool, [[Deadpan Snarker|sardonic]] delivery made him a natural for [[Hollywood History|costume]] [[Wicked Cultured|villainy]], and he appeared as the treacherous [[Historical Villain Upgrade|Earl of Hereford]] in the Warner Brothers’ adaptation of [[Mark Twain]]’s ''The Prince and the Pauper'', in which rising Warners star [[Errol Flynn]] also appeared as Sir Miles Hendon. Rains and Flynn would appear together again to even better effect in ''[[The Adventures of Robin Hood (Film)|The Adventures of Robin Hood]]''; Rains would credit ''Hood'' director Michael Curtiz with teaching him to moderate his [[Large Ham|theatrical acting style]] for films.
Line 14:
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.
In 1957 Rains [[WTH Casting Agency|sang and danced]] to the [[Public Domain Soundtrack|music of Edvard Grieg (!)]] in a [[So Bad
=== Some notable films Claude Rains appeared in include: ===
Line 43:
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Actors]]
[[Category:Claude Rains]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
| |||