Claude Rains: An Actor's Voice

8. New Stages and Final Curtains

  new Stages and Final Curtains rains’s relaTive isolaTion in Pennsylvania did nothing to lessen the ceaseless stream of fan mail, from which the actor could have easily inferred that the years had enlarged rather than diminished his professional stature and that women of all ages still thrilled to his polished, rich, and sensual voice and to the memory of all those screen portrayals of urbane wickedness and gallantry. There seemed no reason that he should have been especially attracted to a pale pink envelope that appeared in the profusion of his mail one morning. But something attracted him to it, and he opened this envelope first. The writer identified herself as a West Chester housewife named Rosemary McGroarty, and she inquired, with great deference, if Rains would be willing to address a local theatrical group called The Footlighters. Although Rains received many such requests (and frequently granted them), he telephoned Mrs. McGroarty immediately, intending to tell her he was leaving the following day for some engagement. Her voice, he recalled, was both melodious and vivacious, and he suddenly found himself inviting her to visit. It was an invitation he regretted the moment he gave it, for he realized he had merely succumbed to the pleasure of her voice. “Now, why did I do that?” he muttered to himself. His housekeeper would not arrive until nearly noon, so he put the coffee on the stove himself and waited irritably for his visitor. It was eleven o’clock before the doorbell rang. Rains braced himself, in the manner of a star confronting a stage door congestion of fans, and resolved to say C l a u D e R a i n S  that, as much as he would like to accommodate The Footlighters, it was not possible. He was stunned as he pulled open the door, for instead of the frumpy village matron he had expected, there stood a willowy blonde woman in a bright yellow coat and an immense paisley-banded picture hat—“this glorious creature,” he later recalled. A decorous hour ensued, wherein Mrs. McGroarty sat demurely at the old pine table by the kitchen fireplace, discussing aspects of the theatre and Rains’s career. She was familiar enough with his work to accurately quote one of his more memorable lines from Deception. Rains was both flattered and impressed, and he resolved to himself to telephone her as soon as he returned from Hollywood and the filming of This Earth Is Mine, a bucolic melodrama set in California’s wine country , in which he played a bearded, irascible patriarch to Jean Simmons, Dorothy McGuire, and Rock Hudson. Rains’s daughter and her friends at Bennington were especially curious about the male lead in This Earth Is Mine. Several of them crowded into a phone booth when she called her father long distance. “Is it true that Rock Hudson is homosexual?” they wanted to know. “Of course not,” said Rains, deadpan. “He’s perfectly charming. He always says ‘Good morning, Claudie,’ and gives me a friendly pat on the behind.” This Earth Is Mine was Rains’s first film for Universal since Phantom of the Opera, and “the first one that has a pleasant title. I was starting to believe they would only engage me for horror pictures,” he told studio publicist Bob Rains, whom industry people often assumed was some relation to Claude, perhaps his son. Rock Hudson had introduced the nonnamesakes to each other. Bob asked Claude if he knew anything about London’s Rains University, which had been obliterated in the Blitz. Bob’s great-grandfather had taught journalism there. Claude wasn’t familiar with the school, but he took a liking to Bob and, on two subsequent trips to London, sent the publicist gag photos, the first with an attached note: “I still can’t locate the Rains University. I trust this will suffice until I do.” The photo showed Rains standing in front of the Tower of London holding a hand-lettered sign reading rains UniversiTy. A few years new Stages and Final Curtains  later came a follow-up: “They say if you don’t succeed, try, try again. And I have tried and tried and tried. I really think I am getting too old to look for the Rains University. But I guess that fathers should never stop trying to help their sons.” The photo this time showed Rains outside Buckingham...