Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role 1937
Luise Rainer The Great Ziegfeld 1937
SEX WORKER ROLE
O-Lan in The Good Earth 1938
Wins Oscar For Playing Character Sold Into Slavery
Luise Rainer in The Good Earth 1938
The first performer to win back-to-back Best Actress Oscars, Luise Rainer won her second Academy Award playing O-Lan in “The Good Earth.” She plays a Chinese farm woman sold into slavery by her parents to a farmer. Some would argue that the character in this film is a prostitute. Enslaved people sold for marriage must bear children in addition to doing all the housekeeping, helping out in the fields, and anything else that needs to be done – you can fill in the blanks. So an enslaved person must be a jack of all trades in more ways than one.
Watch scene from the film “The Good Earth”
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