Romy Schneider

Romy Schneider

 born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach; 23 September 1938 – 29 May 1982 was a German-French actress. She began her career in the German Heimatfilm genre in the early 1950s when she was 15. From 1955 to 1957, she played the central character of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the Austrian Sissi trilogy, and later reprised the role in a more mature version in Visconti’s Ludwig (1973). Schneider moved to France, where she made successful and critically acclaimed films with some of the most notable film directors of that era.

Early life

Schneider was born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach in Vienna, Austria, to actors Magda Schneider and Wolf Albach-Retty. Her paternal grandmother, Rosa Albach-Retty, was also an actress. Schneider’s mother was German while her father was Austrian.

Four weeks after Romy’s birth, the parents brought her to Schönau am Königssee in Germany, where she and later her brother Wolf-Dieter (born 1941) grew up with their grandparents Franz Xaver and Maria Schneider on the estate named Mariengrund. In her first year Romy was given into the hands of a governess. Her parents were very rarely present due to their acting engagements. In 1943 they separated, and were divorced in 1945.

Schneider was enrolled in the elementary school of Schönau in September 1944 and attended from July 1949 the girls residential school at Castle Goldenstein , a private secondary school of the Augustinian Canonesses of the Congregation of Notre Dame in Elsbethen near Salzburg. Already during her schooldays, she discovered her passion for acting, which is why she was often on stage at theatrical performances at the residential school. In her diary entry of June 10, 1952, she wrote: “If it were up to me, I would immediately become an actress. … Every time I see a nice movie, my first thoughts are about the idea: I definitely have to become an actress. Yes! I have to!” On July 12, 1953, she left the residential school Goldenstein with the degree of Mittlere Reife.

After the summer holidays, it was intended she would study at the Kölner Werkschulen in Cologne, as she had shown a talent for painting and drawing during art classes at school. Further, Magda Schneider was already in Cologne with the restaurateur and entrepreneur Hans Herbert Blatzheim . However, she abandoned this plan in favour of her first film role.

After her parents’ divorce in 1945, Magda took charge of Romy and her brother Wolf-Dieter, eventually supervising the young girl’s career, often appearing alongside her daughter. Her career was also overseen by her stepfather Blatzheim, who, Schneider indicated, had an unhealthy interest in her.

Early career

Romy Schneider’s first film, made when she was 15, was When the White Lilacs Bloom Again (1953), credited as Romy Schneider-Albach. In 1954, Schneider, for the first time, portrayed a royal, playing a young Queen Victoria in the Austrian film Mädchenjahre einer Königin (known in the U.S. as The Story of Vickie, and in Britain as Victoria in Dover).

Schneider’s breakthrough came with her portrayal of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, in the romantic biopic Sissi (1955) and its two sequels, Sissi – The Young Empress (1956), and Sissi – Fateful Years of an Empress (1957), all with Karlheinz Böhm, who became a close friend. Less stereotypical films during this busy period include The Girl and the Legend (1957), working with a young Horst Buchholz, and Monpti (1957), directed by Helmut Käutner, again with Buchholz.

Schneider soon starred in Christine (1958), a remake of Max Ophüls’s 1933 film Liebelei (in which her mother Magda Schneider had played the same role). It was during the filming of Christine that Schneider fell in love with French actor Alain Delon, who co-starred in the movie. She left Germany to join him in Paris, and they announced their engagement in 1959.

Schneider decided to live and to work in France, slowly gaining the interest of film directors such as Orson Welles for The Trial (1962), based upon Franz Kafka’s The Trial. She was also introduced by Delon to Luchino Visconti. Under Visconti’s direction, she gave performances in the Théâtre Moderne as Annabella (and Delon as Giovanni) in John Ford’s stage play ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (1961), and in the film Boccaccio ’70 (segment: “The Job”). In 1962, Schneider played Anna in Sacha Pitoëff’s production of Chekhov’s play The Seagull, also at the Théâtre Moderne.

A brief stint in Hollywood included a starring role in Good Neighbor Sam (1964), a comedy with Jack Lemmon, while What’s New Pussycat? (1965), although American-financed, was shot in and around Paris. Schneider co-starred with Peter O’Toole, Peter Sellers, and Woody Allen.

Schneider and Delon decided to separate in 1963, although they remained close life-long friends. They continued to work together in such films as La Piscine (The Swimming Pool, 1968), which revitalized her career, and The Assassination of Trotsky (1972).

Later career

Schneider continued to work in France during the 1970s, most notably with director Claude Sautet on five films. Their first collaboration, The Things of Life (Les choses de la vie, 1970) featuring Michel Piccoli, made Schneider an icon in France. The three collaborated again for the noir thriller Max et les ferrailleurs (Max and the Junkmen, 1971), and she appeared with Yves Montand in Sautet’s César et Rosalie (1972).

Schneider portrayed a more mature and realistic Elisabeth of Austria in Ludwig (1973), Visconti’s film about the life of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. “Sissi sticks to me just like oatmeal”, Schneider once said.

Other successes from this period included Le Train (1973), where she played a German-Jewish refugee in World War II, Claude Chabrol’s thriller Innocents with Dirty Hands (Les innocents aux mains sales, 1975) with Rod Steiger, and Le vieux fusil (1975). The gritty That Most Important Thing: Love (L’important c’est d’aimer, 1974) garnered her first César Award (France’s equivalent of the Oscar), a feat she repeated five years later, in her last collaboration with Sautet, for A Simple Story (Une histoire simple, 1978).

On 30 October 1974, Schneider created one of the most memorable moments on German television. She was the second guest on Dietmar Schönherr’s talk show Je später der Abend  (The Later the Evening) when she, after a rather terse interview, remarked passionately to the last guest, bank robber and author Burkhard Driest: “Sie gefallen mir. Sie gefallen mir sehr.” (I like you. I like you a lot.)

She also acted in Le Trio infernal (1974) with Michel Piccoli, and in Garde à vue (1981) with Michel Serrault and Lino Ventura. An unpleasant incident occurred during this period with leading German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who wanted to cast her as the lead in his film The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979). Negotiations broke down when he called Schneider a “dumb cow”, to which she responded by declaring she would never work with such a “beast”. Fassbinder cast Hanna Schygulla instead, reviving his professional association with an actress to whom he had also been offensive.

Schneider starred in Bertrand Tavernier’s Death Watch (La mort en direct, 1980), playing a dying woman whose last days are watched on national television via a camera implanted in the brain of a journalist (Harvey Keitel). It is based on David G. Compton’s novel. Schneider’s last film was La Passante du Sans-Souci (The Passerby, 1982).

Personal life

Following the end of her relationship with Delon, Schneider married German director and actor Harry Meyen in July 1966. The couple had a son, David Christopher (1966–1981), but later divorced.

She appeared as one of 28 women under the banner “We’ve had abortions!” (German: Wir haben abgetrieben!) on the cover page of the West German magazine Stern on 6 June 1971. In that issue, 374 women publicly stated that they had had pregnancies terminated, which at that time was illegal.

In 1975, Schneider married Daniel Biasini , her private secretary; they divorced in 1981. Their daughter, Sarah Magdalena, is an actress.

Death

In July 1981, Schneider’s son David died at the age of 14 after attempting to climb the spiked fence at his stepfather’s parents’ home and puncturing his femoral artery in the process. Schneider began drinking alcohol excessively after his death. However, Schneider’s friend, Claude Pétin, said that Schneider no longer drank at the time of her death.

Schneider was found dead in her Paris apartment on 29 May 1982. The examining magistrate Laurent Davenas  declared that she died from cardiac arrest. Pétin said that Schneider’s cardiac arrest was due to a weakened heart caused by a kidney operation she had months before.

Her tombstone at Boissy-sans-Avoir, Yvelines, bears her birth name, Rosemarie Albach. Funeral guests were her brother Wolf-Dieter, Gérard Depardieu, Jean-Claude Brialy, Michel Piccoli, Claude Sautet, Claude Lelouch, Jean Rochefort, former husband Daniel Biasini and Laurent Pétin. Shortly afterwards, Delon arranged for David to be buried in the same grave.

Enduring popularity

The French journalist Eugène Moineau initiated in 1984 the Prix Romy Schneider. It is one of the most prestigious awards for upcoming actresses in the French film industry, and is given by a jury each year in Paris in conjunction with the Prix Patrick Dewaere (formerly the Prix Jean Gabin). In 1990, the Austrian newspaper Kurier created the Romy TV Award in honour of Schneider. In 2003, she was voted 78th on the list of the greatest Germans in the German TV program Unsere Besten (the German version of 100 Greatest Britons)—the second-highest ranked actress (Marlene Dietrich was 50th) on that list. Until 2002, the Austrian Federal Railways InterCity service IC 535 from Wien Südbahnhof to Graz was named “Romy Schneider”.

A movie about Schneider’s life, titled Eine Frau wie Romy/Une femme comme Romy (A Woman Like Romy), was planned by Warner Bros. for 2009; Schneider’s role was going to be played by Yvonne Catterfeld. The project was cancelled in July 2009. A musical about Schneider, Romy – Die Welt aus Gold (Romy – The Golden World) was premiered in 2009 at the Theater Heilbronn. In November 2009, the ARD broadcast the feature film Romy  with Jessica Schwarz in the title role. The film 3 Days in Quiberon (2018) by Emily Atef describes a 1981 episode in Schneider’s life in the French town of Quiberon.

On 23 September 2020, Google celebrated her 82nd birthday with a Google Doodle in Germany, France, Austria, Iceland and Ukraine.

Filmography

Title	Year	Role	Director	Notes
When the White Lilacs Bloom Again	1953	Evchen Förster	Hans Deppe
Fireworks	1954	Anna Oberholzer	Paul Burkhard, Erik Charell, and Kurt Hoffmann
Victoria in Dover (Mädchenjahre einer Königin)	1954	Princess Victoria / Queen Victoria	Ernst Marischka
Die Deutschmeister	1955	Stanzi Hübner	Ernst Marischka
The Last Man	1955	Niddy Hoevelmann	Harald Braun
Sissi	1955	Sissi	Ernst Marischka
Kitty and the Great Big World	1956	Kitty Dupont	Alfred Weidenmann
Sissi – Die junge Kaiserin	1956	Sissi	Ernst Marischka
The Girl and the Legend	1957	Maud	Josef von Báky
Love from Paris (Monpti)	1957	Anne-Claire Jouvain	Helmut Käutner
Sissi – Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin	1957	Sissi	Ernst Marischka
Scampolo	1958	Scampolo	Alfred Weidenmann
Mädchen in Uniform	1958	Manuela von Meinhardis	Géza von Radványi
Christine	1958	Christine Weiring	Pierre Gaspard-Huit
Eva (Die Halbzarte)	1959	Nicole	Rolf Thiele
Mademoiselle Ange (Ein Engel auf Erden)	1959	Stewardess / Angel	Géza von Radványi
Die schöne Lügnerin	1959	Fanny Emmetsrieder	Axel von Ambesser
Magnificent Sinner (Katia)	1959	Katia	Robert Siodmak
Purple Noon (Plein soleil)	1960	Freddie’s companion	René Clément	Cameo, Uncredited
Die Sendung der Lysistrata	1961	Myrrhine / Uschi	Fritz Kortner	TV movie
Boccaccio ’70	1961	Pupe	Luchino Visconti	(segment “Il lavoro”)
Le Combat dans l’île	1962	Anne	Alain Cavalier
The Trial	1962	Leni	Orson Welles
The Victors	1962	Regine	Carl Foreman
The Cardinal	1963	Annemarie von Hartman	Otto Preminger
Good Neighbor Sam	1964	Janet Lagerlof	David Swift
L’Enfer	1964	Odette	Henri-Georges Clouzot
L’Amour à la mer	1964	The star	Guy Gilles
What’s New Pussycat?	1965	Carole Werner	Clive Donner
La Voleuse	1966	Julia Kreuz	Jean Chapot
10:30 P.M. Summer	1966	Claire	Jules Dassin
Triple Cross	1966	Countess	Terence Young
Is Paris Burning? (Paris brûle-t-il ?)	1966		René Clément	(scenes deleted)
Romy: Anatomy of a Face (Romy. Porträt eines Gesichts)	1967	Herself	Hans-Jürgen Syberberg
The Swimming Pool	1969	Marianne	Jacques Deray
Otley	1969	Imogen	Dick Clement
The Things of Life	1970	Hélène	Claude Sautet
My Lover My Son	1970	Francesca Anderson	John Newland
Qui ?	1970	Marina	Léonard Keigel
Bloomfield	1971	Nira	Richard Harris
La califfa	1970	Irene Corsini	Alberto Bevilacqua
Max et les ferrailleurs	1971	Lily	Claude Sautet
The Assassination of Trotsky	1972	Gita Samuels	Joseph Losey
César and Rosalie	1972	Rosalie	Claude Sautet
Ludwig	1972	Elisabeth of Austria	Luchino Visconti
The Train	1973	Anna Kupfer	Pierre Granier-Deferre
Le Mouton enragé	1974	Roberte Groult	Michel Deville
Un amour de pluie	1974	Elizabeth	Jean-Claude Brialy
Le Trio infernal	1974	Philomena Schmidt	Francis Girod
L’important c’est d’aimer	1974	Nadine Chevalier	Andrzej Żuławski
Innocents with Dirty Hands	1975	Julie Wormser	Claude Chabrol
Le vieux fusil	1975	Clara Dandieu	Robert Enrico
Mado	1976	Hélène	Claude Sautet
A Woman at Her Window (Une femme à sa fenêtre)	1976	Margot Santorini	Pierre Granier-Deferre
Group Portrait with a Lady	1977	Leni Gruyten	Aleksandar Petrović
A Simple Story	1978	Marie	Claude Sautet
Bloodline	1979	Hélène Martin	Terence Young
Clair de femme	1979	Lydia Tovalski	Costa-Gavras
Death Watch	1979	Katherine Mortenhoe	Bertrand Tavernier
The Lady Banker	1980	Emma Eckhert	Francis Girod
Fantasma d’amore	1981	Anna Brigatti Zighi	Dino Risi
Garde à vue	1981	Chantal Martinaud	Claude Miller
The Passerby	1982	Elsa Wiener / Lina Baumstein	Jacques Rouffio	(final film role)

Awards

• Bambi: 1957 nominated for Sissi
• Bravo Otto
  • 1957: Bronze
  • 1958: Gold
  • 1959: Silver
  • 1971: Silver
  • 1972: Bronze
  • 1977: Bronze
• Étoile de Cristal : 1963 as Best Foreign Actress for The Trial
• Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama: 1963 nominated for The Cardinal
• César Award for Best Actress
  • 1975: won for L’important c’est d’aimer
  • 1976: nominated for Une femme à sa fenêtre
  • 1978: won for Une histoire simple
  • 1979: nominated for Clair de femme
  • 1982: nominated for La Passante du Sans-Souci
• Deutscher Filmpreis Best Actress: 1977 for Group Portrait with a Lady
• Premio David di Donatello: 1979 Lifetime Achievement
• 2008: Honorary César

Awards named after Romy Schneider

• Prix Romy Schneider, French film award established in 1984
• Romy, Austrian award established in 1990

References