Joan Crawford invited his daughter Jennifer to her daughter Christina's birthday party. She told Jennifer's mother, Claude's wife, that Jennifer could wear jeans. Jennifer showed up to the party the only little girl not dressed up. When Christina introduced Jennifer to her mother, Crawford said to Jennifer, "It was very nice to meet you. And now you may leave." Jennifer was also shown Christina's extensive doll collection, which Christina explained to her that no one was ever allowed to touch or play with. Jennifer never returned to the Crawford home.
Herbert Beerbohm Tree recognized Rains' acting talent and paid for the elocution books and lessons he needed due to his poor diction.
After he divorced his third wife and married his fourth, his third wife charged him with bigamy, challenging the legality of their divorce.
Along with Vanessa Redgrave (for Julia (1977)), Kate Winslet (for Iris (2000)) and Mare Winningham (for Georgia (1995)), he is the only performer to be nominated for an Supporting Oscar (for Mr. Skeffington (1944)) for playing the title role in a movie. As of 2010, Redgrave is the only one to win.
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.
Claude Rains was offered numerous parts which would have undoubtedly changed his career path, but one way or another he did not play the parts. These parts include Dr Gogol in Mad Love (1935), Dr Pretorius in Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Frollo or Qasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), Wolf Frankenstein in Son of Frankenstein (1941), Pr Higgins in Pygmalion (1938), Mr Doolittle in My Fair Lady (1964), Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), De Lorca in the Adventures of Don Juan (1948) and Henry Potter in It's A Wonderful Life (1946).
Father of Jessica Rains.
He and wife Beatrix Thomson separated in 1928. It took almost seven years to finalize.
He designed his own tombstone. It reads: "All things once/Are things forever,/Soul, once living,/lives forever.".
He didn't just memorize his own lines, but the entire script.
He never attended a premiere.
He separated from wife Isabel Jeans three times, reuniting two of those times. He finally filed for divorce on grounds of adultery when she miscarried Gilbert Wakefield's baby. She admitted the adultery during the divorce and later married "Gilly" Wakefield.
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 would recite bedtime stories to his daughter Jessica in Cockney, an English dialect that was essentially his mother tongue.
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.
His fifth wife, Agi Jambor, was born in 1908. She was a pianist-composer and Bach expert who taught music at Bryn Mawr.
His fifth wife, Agi, was a Hungarian Jew who had escaped the holocaust. She later composed the piano solo "Sonata for the Victims of Auschwitz.".
His fifth wife, Agi, was a widow who had lost her husband in 1949.
His first wife, Isabel Jeans, always wore a wig because her natural hair was so thin.
His fourth wife, Frances, was born around 1909.