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(William Claude Rains 1889–1967). British actor.
As the son of a prominent British actor who grew up
performing in noteworthy stage productions, he could have had no inkling that,
in his forties, he would be tempted to abandon Broadway by an offer to star in
a Hollywood horror film. But perhaps he was consoled by the fact that it would
be a horror film based on a novel by H. G. WELLS
, and directed by the man responsible for the original Frankenstein
(1931), James WHALE. In any event,
Rains drew upon the full range of his skills and experience to brilliantly
portray a character whose face is never observed until the very end of the
film, conveying his prickly intelligence solely by means of his voice and his
body movements. Having demonstrated such talent, Rains was immediately shifted
into more upscale territory and could long avoid additional horror films,
though he somehow found himself taking on the thankless task of playing Lon
CHANEY, Jr.'s father in The Wolf Man, and he
distinguished himself in a role made famous by that actor's father, Lon
CHANEY, in Phantom of the Opera. He also showed his
versatility by starring both as an angel, in Here Comes Mr. Jordan, and
as the Devil, in Angel on My Shoulder.
But Rains had entered films at a relatively advanced
age, and when he entered his sixties, he found that he was no longer in demand.
So, he did what he could to remain active: mostly, a number of performances on
television, though he could occasionally land a role in minor films—like
science fiction films. Thus, he found himself desperately striving to portray a
persuasive Professor Challenger amidst some very unpersuasive lizards
pretending to be dinosaurs in Irwin ALLEN's
risible version of The Lost World. Yet he was
very much better in Antonio MARGHERITI's
Battle of the Worlds, seizing upon the part of
an irascible scientist to completely dominate the film with his biting dialogue
and surprisingly energetic movements for an actor in his seventies. In small
parts or large parts, Rains always found a way to make himself very visible
indeed.
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