Luise Rainer (12 January 1910 - 30 December 2014) was a German and American film actress. She was the first actor to win more than one Academy Award, and at the time of her death, the longest-lived recipient.
Rainer began acting in Germany at age 16, being trained by Austria's leading stage director, Max Reinhardt. Within a few years, she had become a distinguished Berlin stage actress with Reinhardt's Vienna theater ensemble. Critics "raved" about her acting quality. After years of acting on stage and in films in Austria and Germany, she was discovered by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer talent scouts, who signed her to a three-year contract in Hollywood in 1935. A number of filmmakers envisioned she might become another Greta Garbo, MGM's leading female star at the time.