SNAPSHOT BY VALERIE YAROS
Luise Rainer as Anna Held from the May 1936 issue of The Screen Guilds' Magazine.
LUISE RAINER IS STILL A WINNER
awards were given monthly at the time — for portraying musical comedy stage star Anna Held in The Great Ziegfeld, German-born Luise Rainer, a Guild member since February 1937, continues to receive honors. In September 2011, she traveled from her London home to Berlin for the unveiling of her star on its Boulevard der Stars. A year earlier, on April 25, 2010, she greeted fans at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood as part of Turner Classic Movies Classic Film Festival, where she was interviewed onstage by TCM host Robert Osbourne. In 1938, Luise Rainer became the first actor,
A
male or female, to win consecutive Oscars, nabbing the award for Best Performance –
73 SCREEN ACTOR - Special Issue 2012
lmost 76 years aſter receiving her Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Performance of April 1936 —
Actress for The Good Earth, following her win for The Great Ziegfeld, the year before. Her first Screen Actors Guild Award came in the form of an Honorable Mention in 1935 for her American film debut in the MGM comedy Escapade with William Powell and Frank Morgan. Unlike today's Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Guild did not differentiate between male and female actors in the 1930s: Members voted only on "performance." Luise Rainer is one of only two living
recipients of the original Screen Actors Guild Awards. The other is Deanna Durbin, who won the Best Performance for December 1936 for Three Smart Girls, and resides near Paris. The Guild awards were given monthly for performances from June 1935 – September 1937.
SAG.org
