Claude Rains
Acting
Born 1889-11-10
Died 1967-05-30
Clapham, London, England, UK
86 credits
Read biography
Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 47 years; he later held American citizenship. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man (1933), a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and, perhaps his most famous performance, Captain Renault in Casablanca (1942).
Rains was born William Claude Rains in Camberwell, London on November 10, 1889. He grew up, according to his daughter, with "a very serious cockney accent and a speech impediment". His father was British stage actor Frederick Rains, and the young Rains made his stage debut at 11 in Nell of Old Drury.
His acting talents were recognised by Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, founder of The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Tree paid for the elocution lessons Rains needed in order to succeed as an actor. Later, Rains taught at the institution, teaching John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, among others.
Rains served in the First World War in the London Scottish Regiment, with fellow actors Basil Rathbone, Ronald Colman and Herbert Marshall. Rains was involved in a gas attack that left him nearly blind in one eye for the rest of his life. However, the war did aid his social advancement and, by its end, he had risen from the rank of Private to Captain.
Rains began his career in the London theatre, having a success in the title role of John Drinkwater's play Ulysses S. Grant, the follow-up to the playwright's major hit Abraham Lincoln, and traveled to Broadway in the late 1920s to act in leading roles in such plays as Shaw's The Apple Cart and in the dramatizations of The Constant Nymph, and Pearl S. Buck's novel The Good Earth, as a Chinese farmer.
Rains came relatively late to film acting and his first screen test was a failure, but his distinctive voice won him the title role in James Whale's The Invisible Man (1933) when someone accidentally overheard his screen test being played in the next room. Rains later credited director Michael Curtiz with teaching him the more understated requirements of film acting, or "what not to do in front of a camera".
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Filmography
— top 60 of 86
Rawhide
Dr. Kildare
Naked City
Lawrence of Arabia
Casablanca
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
The Ed Sullivan Show
Playhouse 90
Sam Benedict
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Notorious
The Greatest Story Ever Told
The Wolf Man
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
The Invisible Man
Mr. Skeffington
The Sea Hawk
Now, Voyager
The Lost World
Juarez
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Phantom of the Opera
Caesar and Cleopatra
Breakdowns of 1942
Classic Movie Bloopers: Uncensored
The Prince and the Pauper
Passage to Marseille
Breakdowns of 1941
James Stewart: A Wonderful Life
Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
Kings Row
Angel on My Shoulder
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Rope of Sand
Breakdowns of 1936
Moontide
Deception
The Horror Show
The Passionate Friends
Forever and a Day
The Unsuspected
Famous Monster: Forrest J Ackerman
The Clairvoyant
Breakdowns of 1938
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
The Man Who Watched Trains Go By
Where Danger Lives
Four Wives
Four Mothers
Gold Is Where You Find It
Ingrid Bergman Remembered
Scrooge
The Last Outpost
Daughters Courageous
Lady with Red Hair
Anthony Adverse
The Wolfman
This Earth Is Mine
Monster by Moonlight! The Immortal Saga of 'The Wolf Man'
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