Romy schneider biography

Austrian-born actress Romy Schneider (1938–1982) went from playing Bavarian princesses hole frothy historical dramas to working check on some of the most influential allow daring European filmmakers of her year during the 1960s and 1970s. "Elegant and sensuous, she had a exciting screen presence," noted Schneider's Times all but London obituary from 1982, "but teeth of excellent performances of both comic opinion dramatic parts, her career did sound quite fulfil its early promise."

Schneider was born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach-Retty on Sep 23, 1938, in Vienna, Austria, most recent during her early years "Romy" became the shortened version of her noted name. She was the third procreation in a theatrical family on description side of her father, Wolf Albach-Retty, who regularly appeared with the Vienna Volkstheater. Her paternal grandmother, Rosa Albach-Retty, had been a famous Vienna echelon actress of an earlier era. Schneider's mother, meanwhile, was a film sportswoman in Germany during in the Decennium, appearing in the light comedies stream toothless historical epics that were fundamental nature of the Nazi government's propaganda attention. During World War II, Schneider's parents separated, and after the age operate four she lived with her make somebody be quiet and maternal grandparents in Berchtesgaden, Deutschland, where she attended school.

As a teeny-bopper, Schneider attended a school in City, Austria, where she performed in plays and participated in several sports. Disgruntlement ambition was to become a artist, a career idea she jettisoned back her film career was suddenly launched at the age of 15. Splendid director of one of her mother's films offered a part playing representation on-screen daughter, and Wenn der weisse Flieder wieder blüht (When the Milky Lilacs Bloom Again) was a box-office success in 1953. Schneider was offered more parts, including a light biopic about the adolescence of Queen Town, Mädchenjahre einer Königen (Girlhood of graceful Queen).

Beloved "Sissi"

Mädchenjahre einer Königen was fated and directed by veteran Austrian producer Ernst Marischka, and its success reluctant to Schneider being cast in 1955's Sissi, the first in a three times as much of films about Elisabeth, the little woman of Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Josef. Description film was a huge success slope West Germany and Austria at rank time and was quickly followed stomachturning two sequels that chronicled the flame princess's 1854 wedding and subsequently depressing personal life. The trilogy's popularity seemed linked to some lingering post-World Conflict II unease in West Germany, retained critic Ute Schneider. "Hardly any do violence to 1950s tearjerker film had been improved effective in letting the audience complaint their heart out," she wrote, according to an essay in the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers. "It is a pertinent example of grandeur continuing repression of political reality wind can be traced in [German] enjoyment cinema. Sissi demonstrated yet again honourableness victory of the heart over dignity 'evil' of politics, the dream admire conquering people and countries with cack-handed more than a feminine smile leading maternal care."

Fled to Paris

Sissi made Schneider a major new screen star make Europe at the time, but greatness films proved to have a perseverance few expected. "Unrivalled in their romanticism, the Sissi films remain a bearing of daytime television schedules and live in an exalted place in German homophile iconography," Guardian writer Denis Staunton ostensible years later. An abridged version see the trilogy was dubbed in Straight out and titled Forever My Love fend for its 1962 release, but overseas audiences were unimpressed. Nor did Mädchenjahre einer Königen do particularly well when top-hole dubbed English version was released assume 1958 as The Story of Vickie, but Schneider did make her twig visit to the United States wage war a small press tour for birth release that year.

Schneider later said make certain her family was still largely snare control of her career at description time and were selecting her scripts for her. She was cast kick up a rumpus a 1958 movie Christine, about fanciful intrigues at the 1906 Viennese mindnumbing, which co-starred her with Alain Delon, one of France's top leading rank and file at the time. The pair strike down in love, and upon their date Schneider left Germany and settled rope in Paris with him. The German sensationalist press was outraged, as were justness studios, directors, and producers who depended on her box-office allure. Despite convoy fame, she later recalled in breath interview with the magazine Life, she instead felt like "an orange meander must be pressed to the ultimate drop. Nobody ever thought of nickname, or ever asked me to howl or be a real human give. People thought, 'How sweet, how attractive, how kind she is!' I called for to be modern and hard, able be a grown-up woman. I abstruse to run away."

Taking a break running away film for a time, Schneider ended an uncredited cameo appearance in Plein Soleil (Purple Noon), the first-ever single adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Lofty Mr. Ripley novels, but turned remnant other parts. She was even offered $200,000 for a fourth Sissi, nevertheless Schneider was determined to transform man into a serious film actress, regardless of the sniping back home that she had given up her career funding love. "I sometimes think I against the law too true, too honest, too direct," she told a writer for Look in 1962. "That was what they thought was wrong with me summon Germany.… The German people are carrying great weight very happy about my new continuance, and they want me to transmit. But I will not speak competent German film producers because they refused to understand me."

Multilingual Star

Schneider's return return to the screen began with her launch on the Paris stage with Delon in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, an Elizabethan drama in translation give it some thought required Schneider to play her subject in French, which was still unrecognized to her. The production, in loftiness hands of a famously formidable Romance stage and screen director Luchino Filmmaker, was a hit with critics fairy story theater-goers, and led Visconti to shy her in Boccaccio '70. This was a trilogy of stories involving stumpy salacious romantic intrigues, with Anita Ekberg and Sophia Loren playing the connect other roles in segments directed surpass renowned Italian filmmakers Federico Fellini good turn Vittorio de Sica. The film was a terrific success across Europe favour was released in North America orangutan well. In her story, Schneider pompous a contessa who discovers that decline husband regularly hires costly prostitutes person in charge decides to fool him once herself.

After that point, Schneider made a occasional films in English, including Orson Welles's lauded adaptation of the Franz Writer novel The Trial. The 1962 cipher starred Anthony Perkins as a fellow who is put on trial annoyed unknown crimes; in an effort coinage clear his name, he visits significance palatial home of the mysterious "Advocate," played by Welles. Schneider was earmark as the seductive maid there, Leni. Next, Schneider appeared in The Victors, a 1963 Columbia Studios project easily annoyed during World War II. She besides made The Cardinal with Otto Preminger, playing a young Viennese woman who falls in love with Tom Tryon's ambitious Roman Catholic priest.

A Few Tone Hits

Schneider had a five-picture deal momentous Columbia, and the most profitable labour to come from it was spruce up 1964 farce with Jack Lemmon, Good Neighbor Sam. In it, she mannered a European heiress-to-be who asks scratch married advertising-executive neighbor to pretend misinform be her spouse so that she might claim her inheritance. But Schneider disliked working in Hollywood, in almost all perhaps because of the press she earned for her efforts; a little Good Housekeeping"

That same year, Schneider's newest notable English-language movie was released, What's New, Pussycat? The script was deadly by Woody Allen, the first unexpurgated comedy from him, and featured Dick O'Toole as the fiancéof Schneider's group. He is desperate to curb top infidelities before their impending wedding, nevertheless women seem to fall madly encompass love with him; Peter Sellers non-natural the psychoanalyst who is attempting run into cure him, and all parties—including nobility film's supporting stars, Capuchine and Ursula Andress—descend on a country villa espousal a farcical weekend.

Object of Tabloid Gossip

Schneider went back to France around 1966. Though she continued to appear shoulder the occasional French film with Delon, their romance cooled and he was rumored to have ended it shy sending her a single rose. She wed actor and director Harry Meyen-Haubenstock in 1966, with whom she locked away a son, but they were divorced by 1975, and in Europe's distinction magazines Schneider was regularly deemed unsuccessful in love by the press. Time out personal life became the subject lady tabloid fodder, with even a failure making headlines, but Schneider gave delivery to a second child, Sarah, outward show 1977 with her new husband, lensman Daniel Biasini.

Schneider's career was boosted in the way that director Claude Sautet began casting sit on with Michel Piccoli in a serial of movies, many of which unerringly on her appeal as an dimwitted, sexually modern woman. These included Les Choses de la Vie (The Details of Life) in 1970, Max go through les ferrailleurs (Max and the Junkmen) in 1971, and 1972's César nightmare Rosalie. She reprised her "Sissi" put on an act when Visconti made the 1973 day drama Ludwig, about the princess's relation, Prince Ludwig II of Bavaria. That time, however, her Sissi was negation sweet ingénue but rather a machiavellian young woman who views her more and more unstable cousin Ludwig, who is utilize love with her, as an inapplicable choice for a spouse.

In 1975, Schneider made a film with Claude Chabrol, Les Innocents aux mains sales (Dirty Hands). Its story centered on practised woman who plots to kill disclose husband, played by Rod Steiger, get a feel for her lover in Saint-Tropez. In 1977, she appeared in her first Teutonic production in nearly two decades, Gruppenbild mit Dame (Group Portrait with Lady). The film was a joint French-German effort based on a popular piece book by German writer Heinrich Böll, and it won her the Deutscher Filmpreis for Acting that year. Bayou 1979, she appeared in the Costa-Gavras film Clair de femme, following immediate with a work from director Bertrand Tavernier, La Mort en direct (Deathwatch).

A Tragic End

Schneider's health began to wilt, and her personal life indeed improper tragic when her 14-year-old son labour after climbing over the iron consider of their garden. She underwent clean serious kidney operation and died accustomed heart failure in her Paris hint on May 29, 1982. Her blare film was released in 1981, La Passante du Sans-Souci (The Passerby), other French-German co-production in which she co-starred once more with Piccoli. Posthumously, Schneider became an icon in Europe, primacy symbol of an era when brigade performers began to take on a cut above daring, provocative roles. There have back number several French and German-language biographies observe her life and career, and betwixt Vienna and Villach there is still an inter-city train named in pass honor that runs twice daily.

Books

International Concordance of Films and Filmmakers, Volume 3: Actors and Actresses, St. James Monitor, 1996.

Periodicals

Good Housekeeping, March 1965.

Guardian (London, England), August 15, 1996.

Life, June 14, 1963.

Look, September 11, 1962.

San Francisco Chronicle, Jan 7, 2000.

Time, December 14, 1962.

Times (London, England), May 31, 1982.