Maxine Reiner (March 16, 1916 – June 19, 2003) was an American actress. She was more noted for off-screen marital troubles than for her film performances.

Early life

Maxine Frances Reiner was from

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

, the daughter of Bernard Reiner and Ida Eisenberg Reiner. Her family was Jewish. Her father owned a chain of women's specialty shops, and his father was a jeweler. She attended a school of elocution and dramatic art in Philadelphia, and acted in plays there.

Career

Reiner modeled for advertisements and in swimsuits as a young woman. She moved to Los Angeles with her mother and sister after high school, to seek a career in the film business. She was soon under contract with

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

, and later with

Universal Pictures Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...

. Her first film was '' Wanderer of the Wasteland'' (1935). She also had screen credits in ''

Charlie Chan at the Circus ''Charlie Chan at the Circus'' is the 11th film produced by Fox starring Warner Oland as Charlie Chan. A seemingly harmless family outing drags a vacationing Chan into a murder investigation. The film's sets were designed by the art director Du ...

'' (1936), '' Sins of Man'' (1936), and '' The Girl on the Front Page'' (1936), and smaller uncredited roles in ''

It Had to Happen ''It Had to Happen'' is a 1936 American drama film starring George Raft and Rosalind Russell. The movie was written by Kathryn Scola, and Howard Ellis Smith, and directed by Roy Del Ruth. It is based on the 1909 short story "Canavan, the Man Wh ...

'' (1936) and '' Flying Hostess'' (1936).

Personal life

Reiner married a friend of her parents', businessman Joseph I. Myerson, in 1935; they divorced in 1936, in a contested trial that made headlines. "She said she earned more money than I did and didn't need me," Myerson told the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

''. Her second husband was film producer Harry Eliot Sokolov. They married in 1937, had a son, Thomas, born in 1943, and lived in Beverly Hills with her mother and younger sister; they divorced in 1950. She was linked in gossip columns with author Max Rubinstein in 1951. Her third husband was Frank M. Grossman; they were married briefly in the 1950s. Reiner died in Los Angeles in 2003, aged 87 years. Her son, Thomas R. Sokolov, is a judge on the

Superior Court of Los Angeles County The Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, is the California superior court with jurisdiction over Los Angeles County, which includes the city of Los Angeles. It is the largest single unified trial court in the United States. The ...

. Her younger sister was cookbook author Naomi Shuwarger.

References

External links

*
A Maxine Reiner cigarette card
in the New York Public Library Digital Collections
"Dixie Dunbar, Maxine Reiner, and Helen Wood get their contracts with Twentieth Century Fox approved"
(1935), a photograph in UCLA Library Special Collections 1916 births 2003 deaths People from Philadelphia American actresses {{Portal, Pennsylvania, Film