Maxine Reiner

Reiner was born in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania,^[1] 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.^[2][3]

Reiner modeled for advertisements and in swimsuits as a young woman.^[4] 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,^[5] and later with Universal Pictures.^[6] Her first film was Wanderer of the Wasteland (1935).

She also had screen credits in Charlie Chan at the Circus (1936),^[7] Sins of Man (1936), and The Girl on the Front Page (1936),^[8] and smaller uncredited roles in It Had to Happen (1936) and Flying Hostess (1936).

Reiner married a friend of her parents',^[9] businessman Joseph I. Myerson, in 1935;^[10][11] 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 in February 1936.^[12]

Her second husband was film producer Harry Eliot Sokolov. They married in 1937,^[13] had a son, Thomas, born in 1943, and lived in Beverly Hills, California, with her mother and younger sister; they divorced in 1950.^[14]

She was linked in gossip columns with author Max Rubinstein in 1951.^[15] Her third husband was Frank M. Grossman; they were married briefly in the 1950s.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[16] Her younger sister was cookbook author Naomi Shuwarger.^[17][18]