Anecdotes

The first time his daughter ever saw Rains in a film was in 1950 when he took her to see L'homme invisible (1933) in a small theater in Pennsylvania. They sat in the back, and Rains told her all about the making of the film as it played. The other people in the theater were not watching the movie, but rather watching Rains explain to his daughter how he made the film.

He did not just memorize his own lines, but the entire script.

He designed his own tombstone. It reads: "All things once/Are things forever,/Soul, once living,/lives forever.".

Rains, his wife Frances, and daughter Jennifer lived on a farm in Pennsylvania. When people asked Jennifer what her father did for a living, she would tell them he was a farmer.

Rains was almost blind in one eye because of an injury received in a gas attack during World War I.

When his daughter Jennifer was 17, her mother, Frances Propper, woke her up in the middle of the night, saying she was leaving her father, and wanted to know if Jennifer wanted to come with her. Jennifer declined.

Bette Davis named him as her favourite costar.

He appeared in two Best Picture Academy Award winners: Casablanca (1942) and Lawrence d'Arabie (1962). He was also in six other Best Picture nominees: Anthony Adverse (1936), Robin des Bois (1938), Rêves de jeunesse (1938), Monsieur Smith au sénat (1939), Le Défunt récalcitrant (1941) and Kings Row (1942).

Although they lived in Pennsylvania, Rains did not want his daughter to have a Pennsylvanian accent. He taught her to pronounce words the way he did, and he was successful. Also, as a young child, she stuttered and Rains' cure for this was for everyone in the house to sing everything they wanted to say, which worked.

Rains became a United States citizen in 1938.

Rains was offered numerous roles which would have undoubtedly changed his career path, but one way or another he did not play the roles. These roles include Dr. Gogol in Les Mains d'Orlac (1935), Dr. Pretorius in La Fiancée de Frankenstein (1935), Frollo or Qasimodo in Quasimodo (1939), Wolf von Frankenstein in Son of Frankenstein (1939), Professor Higgins in Pygmalion (1938), Mr. Doolittle in My Fair Lady (1964), Klaatu in Le jour où la Terre s'arrêta... (1951), Duke de Lorca in Les Aventures de don Juan (1948) and Henry Potter in La vie est belle (1946).

Rains flunked his screen test for L'homme invisible (1933). The actor called it "the worst in the history of moviemaking", but director James Whale hired Rains anyway, remarking, "I don't care what he looks like; that's the voice I want.".

His wife Rosemary died from pancreatic cancer. Rains and his doctor kept the diagnosis from Rosemary until one day she said, "Please don't do that to me any longer. I know what I've got.".

Left $25,000 to the Actors Fund of America.

Had played the devil who brought a criminal back to life in Angel on My Shoulder (1946) and played an angel who brought a Boxer back to life in Le Défunt récalcitrant (1941).

He never attended a premiere.

In his obituary, The New York Times claimed that Rains was the first British stage and film star to earn a million dollars for a single film, Caesar and Cleopatra (1945).

Rains loved farming and maintained a 350 acre farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania before moving to Sandwich, New Hampshire in his final years.

He starred in Richard B. Sheridan's "The Rivals" on stage in 1925. His then wife, Beatrix Thomson as well as his two former wives were also in the cast.

He acquired the 380-acre (1.5 km2) Stock Grange Farm, built in 1747 in West Bradford Township, Pennsylvania (just outside Coatesville), in 1941. The farm became one of the "great prides" of his life. Here, he became a "gentleman farmer" and could relax and enjoy farming life with his then wife (Frances) churning the butter, their daughter collecting the eggs, with Rains himself ploughing the fields and cultivating the vegetable garden. He spent much of his time between film takes reading up on agricultural techniques to try when he got home. He sold the farm when his marriage to Propper ended in 1956; the building now, as then, is still referred to by locals as "Rains' Place".

The England and Wales Census of 1891 shows infant William C Rains living with parents Frederick Wm Rains and Emily E Rains at 26 Tregothnan Rd, Lambeth, London. The house still stands, now divided into two flats.

The actor was one of 12 children. Sadly, all but 2 of them deceased from various maladies during their childhood.

Died from an intestinal hemorrhage at Lakes Region Hospital near his home in Sandwich, New Hampshire at age 77.

He would recite bedtime stories to his daughter Jessica in Cockney, an English dialect that was essentially his mother tongue.

While teaching at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he met and married one of his students, Isabel Jeans.

He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6400 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.

Rains' work on an autobiography were halted with the death of his sixth wife, Rosemary Clark. who had been helping him with the project.

Herbert Beerbohm Tree recognized Rains' acting talent and paid for the elocution books and lessons he needed due to his poor diction.

Son of Fred Rains, a highly respected stage actor in England.

His memorable role as L'homme invisible (1933) was referenced in the opening song to the cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).

Along with Vanessa Redgrave (for Julia (1977)), Kate Winslet (for Iris (2000), Mare Winningham (for Georgia (1995)) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (for _The Master (2012)), he is one of the few performers to be nominated for a Supporting Oscar (for Femme aimée est toujours jolie (1944)) for playing the title role in a movie. As of 2013, Redgrave is the only one to win.

Rains was contemplating a return to the stage in 1964 in "So Much of Earth, So Much of Heaven", but poor health prevented that.

He became the first actor to receive a million-dollar salary when he portrayed Julius Caesar in Caesar and Cleopatra (1945).

When not working, Claude Rains preferred living a remote and quiet life with his family.

He has appeared in seven films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: L'homme invisible (1933), Robin des Bois (1938), Monsieur Smith au sénat (1939), Now, Voyager (1942), Casablanca (1942), Les enchaînés (1946) and Lawrence d'Arabie (1962).

Following his death, he was interred at Red Hill Cemetery in Moultonborough, New Hampshire USA PLOT lot 58 and 60.

His daughter Jennifer was born on January 24, 1938. Her screen name is Jessica Rains, as there was already a Jennifer Rains registered in the Actors' Equity.

According to "Claude Rains: An Actor's Voice", he was friends with Helen Westley from the time they were in the Theatre Guild together in New York. When James Whale ordered him to watch movies to observe film acting in preparation for his role in L'homme invisible (1933), Westley was his film watching companion.

In 2010, many of Rains' personal effects were put into an auction at Heritage Auctions, including his 1951 Tony award, rare posters, letters and photographs. Also included in the auction were many volumes of his private leather-bound scrapbooks which contained many of his press cuttings and reviews from the beginning of his career. The majority of the items were used to help David J. Skal write his book on Rains, An Actor's Voice.

In his final years, Rains decided to write his memoirs and engaged the help of journalist Jonathan Root to assist him. Rains' declining health delayed their completion and with Root's death in March 1967 the project was never completed.

Disliked giving interviews and rarely did.

Was a teacher at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before coming to Hollywood, whose students included John Gielgud who once said, "It was during my time at RADA, there was a man who inspired us all. Claude Rains".

He made several audio recordings, narrating some Bible stories for children on Capitol Records, and reciting Richard Strauss's setting for narrator and piano of Tennyson's poem Enoch Arden, with the piano solos performed by Glenn Gould.

Some sources incorrectly list his birthplace as Camberwell, in the London borough of Southwark. However, his birth certificate shows Rains was born at his family's home at 26 Tregothnan Road, Clapham, in the Lambeth district of London.

In 1946, when four films with Rains were running on Broadway at the same time, New York Times critic Bosley Crowther remarked, "It never rains, but what it pours.".

James Whale wanted him to play Dr. Pretorious in La Fiancée de Frankenstein (1935), but he was unavailable due to filming Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935).

He was often described as having come from impoverished working-class background in the East End of London. However in reality he was from a comfortable lower middle-class background in south London, and he never spoke with a Cockney accent.

Won Broadway's 1951 Tony Award as Best Actor (Dramatic) for "Darkness at Noon".

He starred in The Jeffersonian Heritage, a 1952 series of 13 half-hour radio programmes recorded by the National Association of Educational Broadcasters and syndicated for commercial broadcast on a sustaining (i.e., commercial-free) basis.

While filming Les enchaînés (1946) with Alfred Hitchcock and Ingrid Bergman, Hitchcock suggested Rains wear platforms in his shoes as Bergman was very tall. Although embarrassed, Rains agreed to this. One day while Rains was talking to Bergman, Hitchcock came by, lifting Rains' pant leg and revealing his platforms, commenting "The shame of Rains".