Luise Rainer, the oldest living Oscar winner and the first person to win back-to-back acting Oscars, has died at 104, just a few weeks shy of her 105th birthday.

If Luise calls, I'm here!

Rainer's role as Ziegfeld's wife in The Great Ziegfeld (1936) is noted for her amazing performance with a telephone (remember those?), while her performance the following year in The Good Earth remains an achingly modern, naturalistic portrayal, even in the face of the Austrian-accented actress playing a Chinese peasant. Rainer was the only Caucasian in the film to do without extensive “yellowface”; her work exposes her power as an actress while Paul Muni's is marred by ridiculous prosthetics. I suggest you watch this film if you haven't, and pay special attention to a scene where Rainer's character faces execution.

As O-lan in The Good Earth

After those two Oscar-winning roles, her career tapered off. She had virtually retired after 1954, with just four more (eclectic) acting gigs: on a 1965 episode of Combat!, an engagingly nostalgic role on The Love Boat (1984), in the 1991 TV film A Dancer, and in 1997's The Gambler—based on Dostoevsky's novel.

Rainer at the time of her appearance on Combat!

In her dual Love Boat role, with leading men Don Ameche and, uh, Fred Grandy

Playing a grandmother in her final film, The Gambler

Rainer, who at 100 was the oldest person to fill out Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire, was one of the world's longest-lived actors—ever.