Claude Rains

Late in Claude Rains’s distinguished career, a reverent film journalist wrote that Rains “was as much a cinematic institution as the medium itself.” In Claude Rains: An Actor’s Voice, noted Hollywood historian David J. Skal draws on more than thirty hours of newly-released Rains interviews to create the first full-length biography of the actor nominated multiple times for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. This portrait of a universally respected Hollywood legend also benefits from the insights of his daughter, Jessica Rains, who provides firsthand accounts of the enigmatic man behind her father’s refined screen presence and genteel public persona. With unprecedented access to episodes from Rains’s private life, Skal tells the full story of the consummate character actor of his generation.

Author Biography

David J. Skal is the author of numerous books about film and popular culture, including Hollywood Gothic and The Monster Show. He is a frequent lecturer and talk-show guest and has produced several documentaries about Hollywood history, including documentaries about Claude Rains’s The Invisible Man and Phantom of the Opera. Jessica Rains, the only child of Claude Rains, is a producer and actress whose performance credits include The Sting, Pete and Tillie, Islands in the Stream, and Portnoy’s Complaint.