LUISE RAINER - AUTOGRAPHED SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH - HFSID 222400

LUISE RAINER
Black and white publicity photograph shown in a still from the film The Great Waltz
Photograph signed: "Sincerely/Luise Rainer", blue ink, b/w, 8x10. Pencil notes (unknown hand) on verso: "Fernand Gravetmilitza korjus luise raner Great Waltz". Still from the 1938 bio-pic, The Great Waltz, which starred European singing sensation Fernand Gravey as "Waltz King" Johann Strauss. Rainer was top-billed as Poldi Vogelhuber, Strauss' wife, who endures her husband's long affair with opera singer Carla Donner (played by Milza Korjus in her only American film). Luise Rainer (1910-2014) was awarded successive Best Actress Academy Awards for The Great Ziegfeld (1936, which also earned her the moniker "The Viennese Teardrop") and The Good Earth (1937). She was the first woman to win two Oscars, and the first actor to win two consecutive ones. She later considered the back-to-back Oscar wins a misfortune, raising expectations too high, and she is considered by many the most glaring example of the "Oscar jinx."  She moved from the U.S. to England in the early 1940s and largely retired from film. Her patron, producer Irving Thalberg had died, and MGM head Louis B. Mayer did not like her. She reappeared years later on TV, even starring in an episode of The Love Boat (1984), and played a grandmother in the 1997 film The Gambler. Lightly creased at blank margins and corners. Surface creases (most not evident head on). Removed inscription (light writing remains). Otherwise, fine condition.