Biography
Having found limited success as a stage actor in his native England and New York, Claude Rains made a sensational film debut in "The Invisible Man" (1933) and launched a long Hollywood character as a character player whose charm and finely modulated voice graced some of the finest films of the 1930s and 1940s. After another starring turn in "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" (1935), Rains assiduously avoided being typecast in horror films by appearing in the musical "Hearts Divided" (1936), the costume drama "Anthony Adverse," and the romantic drama "Stolen Holiday" (1937), the last being the first of nine films he made with director Michael Curtiz. He went on to co-star in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938) and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939), before delivering his most iconic performance as the cheerful, but corrupt French police captain Renault in the mother of all classic movies, "Casablanca" (1942). From there, he appeared in a number of acclaimed films like "Now, Voyager" (1942), "Passage to Marseille" (1944), and "Mr. Skeffington" (1944), before delivering another iconic performance as the wanted leader of an underground Nazi movement in Alfred Hitchcock's "Notorious" (1946), which earned the actor his fourth Academy Award nomination. Though he appeared in movies of diminishing quality, he ended his career on a high note with major supporting parts in "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) and "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965), underscoring for Rains a career as one of Hollywood's most popular character actors.
