Maria Schneider (actress)
| Maria Schneider | |
|---|---|
Schneider at Créteil Films de Femmes Festival in Paris, 2001
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| Born |
Maria-Hélène Schneider 27 March 1952 Paris, France |
| Died | 3 February 2011 (aged 58) Paris, France |
| Cause of death | Cancer |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1969–2008 |
| Partner(s) | Maria Pia Almadio |
| Parent(s) |
Daniel Gélin (deceased) Marie-Christine Schneider |
Maria-Hélène Schneider (27 March 1952 – 3 February 2011), known as Maria Schneider, was a French actress. At age 19 she became famous for portraying Jeanne opposite Marlon Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci's film Last Tango in Paris (1972); and the Girl in Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger (1975), opposite Jack Nicholson.
Schneider was born in Paris to Daniel Gélin, a French actor, and Marie-Christine Schneider from Romania, who ran a bookshop in Paris. Gélin was married to actress and producer Danièle Delorme during his affair with Marie-Christine Schneider; he never acknowledged Schneider as his daughter. Schneider was brought up by her mother in a town near the French border with Germany; she met her father only three times.
As a teenager, she adored films, going to the cinema up to four times a week. She left home at 15 after an argument with her mother and went to Paris, where she made her stage acting debut that same year. She eked out a living as a film extra and a model. While working as an extra, she met Brigitte Bardot, who knew her father. Bardot offered Schneider a room in her house. Through Bardot, Schneider met people in the film business and Bardot introduced her to the William Morris Agency. She was 18 when she had her first break in 1970, appearing in Madly, starring Alain Delon.
Schneider gained international renown for her performance at the age of 19 in the sexually explicit and controversial Last Tango in Paris (1972), directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. She performed several nude scenes in a graphic portrayal of anonymous sex with an older man. In an interview in 2007, Schneider described the director Bertolucci by the following: "He was fat and sweaty and very manipulative, both of Marlon and myself, and would do certain things to get a reaction from me." As for her working relationship with Brando, she said that he had a paternal relationship with her on the set. But Brando suggested the acted sodomy scene, and Bertolucci did not reveal this scene to her until just before the filming of it. In 2007 she said:
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