Luise Rainer in the film & # Xab; The Great Ziegfeld & # Xbb, released in 1936.
Luise Rainer in the movie “The Great Ziegfeld” released in 1936. – MovieStore Collection / Rex Features / SIPA

20 Minutes with AFP

The actress Luise Rainer, star of American cinema of the 1930s and who had won two consecutive Oscars, died Tuesday the age of 104 years, announced his daughter. Luise Rainer was the Oscar-winning oldest still alive.

She died in London in the early morning, said his only daughter, Francesca Bowyer Knittel, on twitter. “She left with grace and serenity after having fought against pneumonia,” she said in an email to AFP. “It leaves an indelible mark on his profession and in all who knew her.”



She refused frivolous roles

Born in Germany into a wealthy Jewish family, Luise Rainer has turned in 14 films. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress two years running for his roles in The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937).

It was the first of the actors or actresses to win two Oscars in a row, a feat matched by only four other people, including the legendary Katharine Hepburn. But at the time when the big cigar studio moguls ruled the roost in film, Luisa Rainer, with its two statuettes, refused frivolous roles the legendary MGM boss wanted to offer him.



A career in theater and television

“He said:” We have made you, we will destroy you, ‘”she had told the Daily Telegraph London shortly before his hundredth birthday. “Well, let’s say he has tried,” she said, sarcastically.

On the fringes of Hollywood, Rainer has built a career in theater in the United States and Great -Britain. From 1950 it is frequently appeared on television, including the BBC productions, and in 1984, in an episode of the popular American series The Love Boat .