The words "unique actor" and "consummate professional" are overused in the entertainment industry, but they describe perfectly Claude Rains, an exceptional character actor of the Golden Age of Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s. Rains was known for his subtle nuances in style, his perfect diction, and his mellifluous voice as he skillfully created memorable characters on stage, screen, television, and radio for nearly 50 years.

Of the 54 movies Rains made from 1933 to 1965, he is most remembered for his unforgettable performances as the mad chemist in The Invisible Man (1933), the smoothly corrupt senator foiled by Jimmy Stewart in Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), the sympathetic and pitiful betrayed husband of Ingrid Bergman in Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946), and the charmingly corrupt Vichy police official who joins Humphrey Bogart to fight for freedom at the end of Casablanca (1942). But few Americans know that the British-born...