Early roles Rainer moved to Hollywood in 1935 as a hopeful new star. Biographer
Charles Higham notes that MGM studio head
Louis B. Mayer and story editor
Samuel Marx had seen footage of Rainer before she came to Hollywood, and both felt she had the looks, charm, and especially a "certain tender vulnerability" that Mayer admired in female stars. Because of her poor command of English, Mayer assigned actress
Constance Collier to train her in correct speech and dramatic modulation, and Rainer's English improved rapidly. She received the part after
Myrna Loy gave up her role halfway through filming. The film generated immense publicity for Rainer, who was hailed as "Hollywood's next sensation." However, she did not like giving interviews, explaining: Stars are not important, only what they do as a part of their work is important. Artists need quiet in which to grow. It seems Hollywood does not like to give them this quiet. Stardom is bad because Hollywood makes too much of it, there is too much 'bowing down' before stars. Stardom is weight pressing down over the head — and one must grow upward or not at all. Powell, impressed by Rainer's acting skill, had given her equal billing in
Escapade. She was criticized for not resembling the Polish-born stage performer. Powell, having worked with her in two films, gave his impressions of her acting style and quality: She is one of the most natural persons I have ever known. Moreover, she is generous, patient and possesses a magnificent sense of humor. She is an extremely sensitive organism and has a great comprehension of human nature. She has judgment and an abiding understanding which make it possible for her to portray human emotion poignantly and truly. Definitely a creative artist, she comprehends life and its significance. Everything she does has been subjected to painstaking analysis. She thinks over every shade of emotion to make it ring true. In Europe she is a great stage star. She deserves to be a star. Unmistakably she has all the qualities. The role, however, was completely the opposite of her Anna Held character, as she was required to portray a humble
Chinese peasant subservient to her husband and speaking little during the entire film. Her comparative muteness, stated historian
Andrew Sarris, was "an astounding tour de force after her hysterically chattering telephone scene in
The Great Ziegfeld", and contributed to her winning her second Best Actress Oscar. The award made her the first actress to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat not matched until
Katharine Hepburn's two wins thirty years later. She said that it made her "work all the harder now to prove the Academy was right." Rainer later recalled early conflicts even before production. Studio head Louis B. Mayer, for example, did not approve of the film being produced or her part in it, wanting her to remain a glamorous film star: "He was horrified at
Irving Thalberg's insistence for me to play O-lan, the poor uncomely little Chinese peasant," she said. "I myself, with the meager dialogue given to me, feared to be a hilarious bore." Rainer remembered hearing Mayer's comments to Thalberg, her producer: "She has to be a dismal-looking slave and grow old; but Luise is a young girl; we just have made her glamorous — what are you doing?" in
Dramatic School (1938) In late 1936, MGM conceived a script called
Maiden Voyage especially for Rainer. The project was shelved and eventually released as
Bridal Suite in 1939, starring
Annabella as 'Luise'. Another 1936 unrealized film project that involved Rainer was
Adventure for Three, which would have co-starred William Powell. In 1938, she played
Johann Strauss's long-suffering wife Poldi in the successful Oscar-winning MGM musical biopic
The Great Waltz, her last big hit. Her four other films for MGM, ''
The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937) with William Powell, Big City (1937) with Spencer Tracy, The Toy Wife (1938) and Dramatic School (1938), were ill-advised and not well received, though Rainer continued to receive praise. The Emperor's Candlesticks'', in which Rainer was cast in November 1936, reunited Rainer with Powell for the final time. For the film, she wore a red wig and wore costumes designed by
Adrian, who claimed that Rainer, by the end of 1937, would become one of Hollywood's most influential people in fashion. On set, she received star treatment, having her own dressing room, diction teacher, secretary, wardrobe woman, hairdresser, and makeup artist. Even though reviews of Rainer's performance in
Big City were favorable, reviewers agreed that she was miscast in a 'modern role' and looked "too exotic" as Tracy's wife. Despite the criticism and announcements of leaving Hollywood, Rainer renewed her contract for seven years shortly after the film's release. Most critics agreed Rainer was "at her most appealing" in
The Toy Wife. Rainer refused to be stereotyped or to knuckle under to the studio system, and studio head Mayer was unsympathetic to her demands for serious roles. Furthermore, she began to fight for a higher salary, and was reported as being difficult and temperamental. Speaking of Mayer decades later, Rainer recalled, "He said, 'We made you and we are going to destroy you.' Well, he tried his best."
Departure from Hollywood in January 1937, shortly before their marriage Rainer made her final film appearance for MGM in 1938 and abandoned the film industry. In a 1983 interview, the actress told how she went to Louis B. Mayer's office and said to him: "Mr Mayer, I must stop making films. My source has dried up. I work from the inside out, and there is nothing inside to give." Following this altercation, she traveled to Europe, where she helped get aid to children who were victims of the
Spanish Civil War. Disenchanted with Hollywood, where she later said it was impossible to have an intellectual conversation, She filed for divorce in mid-1938, but proceedings were delayed "to next October" when Odets went to England. The divorce was final on 14 May 1940. Rainer and Odets summered at
Pine Brook Country Club in
Nichols, Connecticut, where numerous other members of the
Group Theatre (New York) also spent the summer of 1936, both acting and writing. Despite the negativity, Rainer was one of the actresses considered for the role of
Scarlett O'Hara in
Gone With the Wind (1939), but the idea was not well-received, and she was not given a
screen test. She also was unable to persuade MGM bosses to cast her in
Johnny Belinda, based on a 1940 play about a deaf-mute rape victim. In a later interview, Rainer commented about her disappearance from the movie industry: I was very young. There were a lot of things I was unprepared for. I was too honest, I talked serious instead of with my eyelashes and Hollywood thought I was cuckoo. I worked in seven big pictures in three years. I have to be inspired to give a good performance. I complained to a studio executive that the source was dried up. The executive told me, 'Why worry about the source. Let the director worry about that.' I didn't run away from anybody in Hollywood. I ran away from myself. ==Later life and career==