Luise Rainer

Luise Rainer (1910–2014) was a German-born Austrian-American actress who won consecutive Academy Awards for The Great Ziegfeld and The Good Earth.

The Great Ziegfeld: A 1936 musical biographical film about Broadway impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. Rainer won her first Academy Award for playing Ziegfeld’s wife, Anna Held.
Vienna Burgtheater: A major Austrian national theater founded in Vienna in 1741. Rainer established herself as a stage actress in Vienna before moving to Hollywood.
Consecutive Academy Award wins: Winning an Academy Award in the same category in successive ceremonies. Rainer became the first performer to win consecutive Best Actress awards.
Greta Garbo: A Swedish-American actress who became a major Hollywood star and retired from acting in 1941. Like Rainer, Garbo left Hollywood relatively early, but her departure followed a different career path.
The Good Earth: A 1937 film adaptation of Pearl S. Buck’s novel about a Chinese farming family. Her performance as O-Lan earned Rainer her second consecutive Academy Award.
Max Reinhardt: An Austrian theater director and producer known for influential stage productions and actor training. Reinhardt directed Rainer in German theater and helped bring her to Hollywood.
Oscar-winning actors: Performers who have received one or more Academy Awards for acting. Rainer’s two wins place her among the Academy’s award-winning performers.
Myrna Loy: An American actress whose film career spanned silent cinema through the postwar era. Loy’s long Hollywood career contrasts with Rainer’s brief period as a major MGM star.
Academy Award for Best Actress: The Academy Award honoring the leading performance by an actress in a film. Rainer received the award for both films, in consecutive years.
Hollywood: A district of Los Angeles that became a center of the American film industry. Rainer’s Hollywood career brought her two major studio films and rapid fame.

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YellowfaceBroader topic: Her performance won an Academy Award despite the film’s exclusion of Asian actors from its central roles.