Luce Rains (Actor)

Luce Rains grew up on a horse farm in Lexington, Kentucky. Most of his childhood was spent mucking corrals, tending to livestock and building rock walls. He walked or rode his bicycle to school. His greatest pleasures were hiking and camping in the fields and forests around the farm and fishing in the lakes that extended out into the back country. He and a few friends spent a lot of time following Tates Creek that past by their property, ending at the Kentucky river where they had a rope swing tied high in a Sycamore Tree that they used to swing out over the river and on summer days drop into the cool water. It was a Huck Finn childhood. In the mid-sixties his parents moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico where he continued to muck corrals. His mom, thinking he needed a little artistic activity, enrolled him in the local theatre company and he began to play a few roles. When it came time to go to college he auditioned for and was accepted on a scholarship at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri which had a conservatory program - students working with faculty -- and he developed some acting chops while working in the cafeteria for a few extra bucks. The girls were spectacular at Stephen's, and upon graduation he married his college sweetheart and moved to California and California Institute of the Arts. Interesting times -- when he left Cal Arts he was cast in the role of Hardeman in Midway at Universal Studios. After working in Los Angeles for most of the 70's, Luce went to Santa Fe for a long weekend and established the New Mexico Repertory Theatre Company with fellow Cal Artsian, Andrew Shea. In 1987, in a passionate rage, he started a Shakespeare Festival in Amelia White Park on the Old Santa Fe Trail with the Sangre de Christo Mountains in the background. It was a popular event each summer and drew hundreds of patrons and some dogs. Luce past on the directorship of the Festival in 1994 after a production of Romeo and Juliet where he met his current wife Lisa who played Juliet, and returned to acting. Since Midway, Luce has more than mucked his way through 40 film and TV productions and over 30 stage roles from Shakespeare to Shepard.