Claude Rains in the context of "Character actor"

Erik (also known as the Phantom of the Opera, commonly referred to as the Phantom) is the titular central character of Gaston Leroux's Le Fantôme de l'Opéra, best known to English speakers as The Phantom of the Opera. The character has been adapted to alternative media several times, including in the 1925 film adaptation starring Lon Chaney, the 1943 remake starring Claude Rains, the 1962 remake starring Herbert Lom and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical.

The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 9th Academy Awards to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a supporting role in a film released that year. The award is traditionally presented by the previous year's Best Supporting Actress winner. However, in recent years, it has shifted towards being presented by previous years' Best Supporting Actor winners instead. In lieu of the traditional Oscar statuette, supporting acting recipients were given plaques up until the 16th Academy Awards, when statuettes were awarded to each category instead.

The Best Supporting Actor award has been presented a total of 89 times, to 80 actors. The first winner was Walter Brennan for his role in Come and Get It (1936). The most recent winner is Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain (2024). The record for most wins is three, held by Brennan–who won every other year within a succession of the first five years. Seven other actors have won twice. Brennan is also tied for receiving the most nominations in the category (with four altogether) along with Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall, Arthur Kennedy, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Claude Rains, and Mark Ruffalo. For his performance in The Dark Knight (2008), Heath Ledger became the first actor to win posthumously in this category—and second overall. Christopher Plummer is the oldest actor to receive a nomination in any category at age 88, for All the Money in the World (2017).

Notorious is a 1946 American spy film noir directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, and Claude Rains as three people whose lives become intimately entangled during an espionage operation.

The film follows U.S. government agent T. R. Devlin (Grant), who enlists the help of Alicia Huberman (Bergman), the daughter of a convicted German spy, to infiltrate a group of German emigrés hiding out in Rio de Janeiro after World War II. The situation becomes complicated when the two fall in love as Huberman is instructed to seduce Alex Sebastian (Rains), an IG Farben executive who had previously been infatuated with her. It was shot in late 1945 and early 1946, and was released by RKO Radio Pictures in August 1946.

Phantom of the Opera is a 1943 American romantic horror film directed by Arthur Lubin, loosely based on Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera and its 1925 film adaptation starring Lon Chaney. Produced and distributed by Universal Pictures, the film stars Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster and Claude Rains. It was composed by Edward Ward.

The first adaptation of the source material to be filmed entirely in Technicolor, Phantom of the Opera was even more freely adapted than Universal's silent picture. The film reused Universal's elaborate replica of the Opéra Garnier interior, which had originally been created for the 1925 film. Despite mixed contemporary reviews, the film was a box office success. It is also the only classic Universal horror film to win an Oscar, for Art Direction and Cinematography. Over the years it has received a more positive reception from modern critics.