Luise Rainer was born into a Jewish family in Dusseldorf,Germany,in 1910.She was discovered by Max Reinhardt in 1926 and became part of his theatre company in Vienna.Rainer was only a teenager when she made her first film. Rainer's Jewish background made her apprehensive w hen Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party gained power.In 1935 she moved to Hollywood and managed to obtain a seven-year contract with the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayerstudio.A non-conformist actress,Rainer refused to accept the values of Hollywood.In 1937 Rainer had to be forced by Louis B. Mayer to receive her Oscar.She later claimed that:"For my second and third pictures I won Academy Awards.Nothing worse could have happened to me." Rainer next film was The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937).Rainer and her husband moved to NYC.She effectively abandoned film-making, living for a while in Switzerland and then Belgravia. She was later encouraged out of retirement to appear in The Gambler (1997).