"Last Tango in Paris" star Maria Schneider dies: report

Actress Maria Schneider poses for photographers during Gijon's International Film festival November 25, 2000. REUTERS/STR New

Actress Maria Schneider poses for photographers during Gijon's International Film festival November 25, 2000.

Credit: Reuters/STR New
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PARIS | Thu Feb 3, 2011 10:01am EST

PARIS (Reuters) - French actress Maria Schneider, most famous for her role as Marlon Brando's lover in "Last Tango in Paris," has died aged 58, French media reported on Thursday.

Le Figaro newspaper quoted her family as saying she had died on Thursday morning in Paris after a long illness.

The daughter of French actor Daniel Gelin and a Parisian bookshop owner, Schneider was l9 when she was cast in only her second screen role opposite Brando, who was 48.

Last Tango in Paris was controversial at the time of its release in 1972 for its sexual content.

Three years later, Schneider appeared opposite Jack Nicholson in "The Passenger."

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Factbox - Controversial actress Maria Schneider

PARIS | Thu Feb 3, 2011 11:42am EST

PARIS (Reuters) - Maria Schneider, controversial actress and star of "Last Tango in Paris" died in Paris. She was 58.

Here are some facts about Schneider:

* LIFE DETAILS:

-- Schneider was born in March 1952 in Paris, daughter of actor Daniel Gelin and a Romanian-born French woman who ran a bookstore in Paris.

-- She began her film career around 1969 with uncredited appearances - Alain Delon gave her first big chance in "Madly" (1970/71) directed by Roger Kahane.

* LAST TANGO IN PARIS:

-- In 1972 she was selected by director Bernardo Bertolucci to star along side Marlon Brando in the controversial film "Last Tango in Paris." A young Parisian woman begins a sordid affair with a middled-aged American businessman (Brando) who specifies that relationship will be based only on sex.

-- After the release of Last Tango, an Italian court gave Bertolucci a two-month suspended jail sentence.

-- Schneider has said that her experience with the film and her treatment as a sex symbol rather than as a serious actress motivated her to never do films with nude scenes again.

* A DOWNTURN:

-- She starred in another Italian film "The Passenger" directed by Michelangelo Antonioni alongside Jack Nicholson. Schneider did agree to appear in nude in one long shot, but she continued to fear type-casting.

-- This "lost classic," made for MGM in 1975, did not appear on DVD until 2006 and was not seen much in any form since its theatrical release.

* LATER CAREER:

-- For Schneider, the 1970s were marked by scandal, drug addiction and a suicide attempt.

-- Her subsequent career consisted mostly of undistinguished, low-budget European films along the lines of "Memoirs of a French Whore" (1979) and "Mamma Dracula" (1980).

-- In 1992, Schneider appeared in the controversial French film "Les Nuits Fauve/Savage Nights."

-- She also played Mrs. Rochester in "Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" (1996) directed by Franco Zeffirelli.

-- She was featured as a woman who has faith in miracles in "Something to Believe In" (1998). Her most recent listed film is "Cliente" from 2008.

Sources: Reuters/The Film Encyclopaedia/IMDB/screenrush.co.uk

(Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit;

Maria Schneider dies aged 58

Maria Schneider, best known as Marlon Brando's co-star in Last Tango in Paris, has died at the age of 58

• 
  

• Xan Brooks
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 February 2011 15.59 GMT
• 
  



Maria Schneider in 2010. Photograph: Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images

Maria Schneider, the actor who helped introduce explicit sex to mainstream cinema, has died following a long illness. The 58-year-old is best known for her performance in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1972 drama Last Tango in Paris – a role that came to both define and destroy her acting career.

Schneider was a teenage model when she landed the role opposite Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris. The film details the relationship between a young Parisian woman and a middle-aged American hotel manager and was notorious for an improvised, butter-assisted sex scene that resulted in a prohibitive X-rating in the US.

The film made Schneider a star, although she later accused Brando and Bertolucci of exploiting her. She described the director as "a gangster and a pimp", likened the experience to being "raped" and said that Last Tango in Paris had taught her an important lesson: "Never take your clothes off for a middle-aged man who claims that it's art."

Bertolucci, for his part, appeared puzzled by the criticism. "It is true that Maria was very young when we shot the film and maybe she couldn't articulate what happened," he told the Guardian in 2003. "So what remains is a confused moment where I am the killer or the bad guy."

Following Last Tango in Paris, Schneider went on to star alongside Jack Nicholson in The Passenger, an existential thriller by director Michelangelo Antonioni. But her subsequent career was hindered by drug addiction and mental illness.

Schneider's other films include A Woman Like Eve, In the Country of Juliets and the acclaimed Aids drama Savage Nights. Her last significant role was the anguished Mrs Rochester in Franco Zeffirelli's 1996 adaptation of Jane Eyre.

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