A hugely popular Austrian star who emerged through a succession of kitsch romantic melodramas in German 50s cinema, Romy Schneider successfully reforged her image in the 1960s to become an actress of versatility and acclaim. She died young, at the height of her international career.

Her parents were the actors Magda Schneider and Wolf Albach-Retty, and Romy began her film career playing her mother's daughter in Wenn der weisse Flieder wieder blüht (1953). After further minor parts in German musicals and romantic comedies, she landed the title role in Ernst Marischka's Sissi (1955), a highly romanticised bio-pic of the Empress Elizabeth of Austro-Hungary. The film and its two sequels Sissi - Die junge Kaiserin (1956) and Sissi - Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin (1957) were enormously successful and established Romy as one of the leading stars of German cinema.

While filming Christine (1958), a remake of Max Ophül's Liebelei -  Magda Schneider's best film, Romy met and fell in love with the popular French actor Alain Delon. They became engaged (March 22nd 1959) and co-starred in several films, but did not marry.

Despite the success of the Sissi films, Romy felt increasing dissatisfaction with her image as a saccharine romantic heroine, and in the 1960s turned her back on German cinema to seek more challenging work abroad. In her international films, notably Orson Welles' The trial (1962), Jacques Deray's La piscine (1968) and Claude Sautet's Les choses de la vie (1969) and César et Rosalie (1972), Romy is revealed in more substantial, harder-edged roles.

She married twice, to German actor Harry Meyen (1966-72) and to her secretary, Daniel Biasini. Romy and Biasini married in Berlin on December 18th 1975 and separated in 1981, a year before her death. She had a son, David, by her first marriage, and a daughter, Sarah Biasini, born July 14th 1977.

Romy died of a heart attack on May 29th 1982, aged 43. Her final years were beset with tragedy and personal trauma, including serious illness, the suicide of her first husband and the accidental death of her son, impaled on the railings of his grandparents' house.

 

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