Schneider, Romy

(1938-1982)

   Actress. Romy Schneider, or Rosemarie Albach-Retty, was born in Vienna, the daughter of actors Wolf Albach-Retty and Magda Schneider. She debuted in cinema in German director Hans Deppe's Wenn der weisse Flieder wieder bluht (1953). In 1954, she played a young Queen Victoria in the film Madchenjahre einer Konigin (1954), by Austrian director Ernst Marischka, followed by title roles in Marischka's Sissi trilogy, which follows the story of the Bavarian princess and later Austrian Empress Elizabeth. She costarred for the first time onscreen with her future partner Alain Delon in Pierre Gaspard'Huit's Christine (1958), a remake of Max Ophuls's 1933 Liebelei. Her mother had played the same role in the Ophiils original.

   In the late 1950s, Schneider and Delon became engaged, although they never married. She maintained a lively theater career and acted onstage with Delon in the play Dommage qu'elle soit une putain, directed by Louis Visconti in 1961. The following year, she acted in Visconti's cinematic sketch "Il Lavoro" in the film Boccacio 70.

   Schneider settled in France but became a legendary international film star. In the 1960s, she played in Orson Welles's The Trial (1963), David Swift's 1964 Good Neighbor Sam (opposite Jack Lemmon), Clive Donner's 1965 film What's New, Pussycat?, with Peter O'Toole, Peter Sellers, and Woody Allen, and Terence Young's 1966 Triple Cross with Christopher Plummer. She continued to star in French films, such as Alain Cavalier's Le Combat dans l'île (1962), Henri-Georges Clouzot's unfinished L'Enfer, and Jean Chapot's La Voleuse (1966). She and Delon separated in 1963, but she still performed with him in films such as Jacques Deray's La Piscine (1968). She acted for the first time for director Claude Sautet along-side Michel Piccoli in Les choses de la vie (1969). Schneider would become Sautet's preferred actress.

   In the 1970s, Schneider acted opposite Yves Montand in César et Rosalie (1972), with Delon in Joseph Losey's The Assassination of Trotsky (1972), with Jean-Louis Trintignant in Pierre Granier-Deferre's Le train (1973), and again alongside Piccoli in Francis Girod's Le Trio Infernale (1974). She replayed the role of Empress Elisabeth in Visconti's Ludwig (1972). In the same decade, she received two César Awards for Best Actress in Andrzej Zulawski's L 'important c'est d'aimer (1975) and Sautet's Une histoire simple (1978). She later costarred in Constantin Costa-Gavras's Clair de femme (1979) with Montand. In the 1980s, she played starring roles in Bertrand Tavernier's La Mort en direct, Girod's La banquière (1980), and Claude Miller's Garde à vue (1981). Her last cinematic performance was in Jacques Ruffio's La passante du Sans-souci (1982). She was nominated for a César for Best Actress for her work.