Birthday:
Birthday:

Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 47 years; he later held American citizenship. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man (1933), a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and, perhaps his most famous performance, Captain Renault in Casablanca (1942). Rains was born William Claude Rains in Camberwell, London on November 10, 1889. He grew up, according to his daughter, with "a very serious cockney accent and a speech impediment". His father was British stage actor Frederick Rains, and the young Rains made his stage debut at 11 in Nell of Old Drury. His acting talents were recognised by Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree, founder of The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Tree paid for the elocution lessons Rains needed in order to succeed as an actor. Later, Rains taught at the institution, teaching John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, among others. Rains served in the First World War in the London Scottish Regiment, with fellow actors Basil Rathbone, Ronald Colman and Herbert Marshall. Rains was involved in a gas attack that left him nearly blind in one eye for the rest of his life. However, the war did aid his social advancement and, by its end, he had risen from the rank of Private to Captain. Rains began his career in the London theatre, having a success in the title role of John Drinkwater's play Ulysses S. Grant, the follow-up to the playwright's major hit Abraham Lincoln, and traveled to Broadway in the late 1920s to act in leading roles in such plays as Shaw's The Apple Cart and in the dramatizations of The Constant Nymph, and Pearl S. Buck's novel The Good Earth, as a Chinese farmer. Rains came relatively late to film acting and his first screen test was a failure, but his distinctive voice won him the title role in James Whale's The Invisible Man (1933) when someone accidentally overheard his screen test being played in the next room. Rains later credited director Michael Curtiz with teaching him the more understated requirements of film acting, or "what not to do in front of a camera".
Birthday: November 10, 1889
Death: May 30, 1967

January 15, 1943

August 21, 1946

December 11, 1962

October 19, 1939

April 09, 1965

July 13, 1960

May 13, 1938

October 31, 1933

November 16, 1950

December 11, 1945

September 20, 1946

October 30, 1961

October 26, 1946

January 21, 1939

October 22, 1942

August 10, 1940

February 06, 1979

August 30, 1934

December 09, 1941

October 11, 1947

April 15, 1936

May 29, 1942

April 30, 1937

May 25, 1944

December 01, 1952

January 21, 1943

August 03, 1949

August 26, 1936

August 12, 1943

October 01, 1920

June 07, 1935

August 07, 1941

August 09, 1938

March 11, 1944

July 14, 1937

January 26, 1949

November 14, 1941

February 25, 1983

February 02, 1942

February 04, 1935

June 24, 1950

October 11, 1935

June 10, 1939

November 30, 1940

June 23, 1938

December 22, 1939

October 19, 1945

July 08, 1959

June 23, 1939

January 04, 1941

December 24, 1934

November 26, 1957

May 04, 1940

November 13, 1963

June 20, 1936

February 06, 1937

May 19, 1951

November 02, 1945

February 12, 1938

August 17, 1956

May 20, 1939

January 29, 2013

January 01, 2000

October 27, 1949

December 30, 1936

December 31, 1937

December 31, 1938

December 31, 1946

April 06, 1996

March 13, 1987

November 26, 1935

November 17, 1957

December 31, 1942

May 16, 2007

January 01, 1999

April 16, 1959

March 10, 2023

February 04, 1966