1. Romy Schneider is regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses of all time and became a cult figure due to her role as Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the Sissi trilogy in the mid-1950s.
24 Facts About Romy Schneider
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Romy Schneider later reprised the role in a more mature version in Luchino Visconti's Ludwig.
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Romy Schneider began her career in the German genre in the early 1950s when she was 15.
4.
Romy Schneider was born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach in Vienna, six months after the Anschluss of Austria into the German Reich.
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Romy Schneider was born to a theatrical couple; her father Wolf Albach-Retty was a leading actor of Vienna's Volkstheater, and her mother Magda Schneider starred in scores of lavish musical films in Germany.
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Romy Schneider's parents were very rarely present due to their acting engagements.
7.
In September 1944, Romy Schneider was enrolled in the elementary school of Schonau and from July 1949 she attended the girls' boarding school at Castle Goldenstein, a private secondary school of the Augustinian Canonesses of the Congregation of Notre Dame in Elsbethen near Salzburg.
8.
Romy Schneider starred in Christine, a remake of Max Ophuls's 1933 film Liebelei.
9.
Romy Schneider left West Germany to join him in Paris, and they announced their engagement in 1959.
10.
Romy Schneider decided to live and to work in France, slowly gaining the interest of film directors such as Orson Welles for The Trial, based on Franz Kafka's The Trial.
11.
In 1962, Romy Schneider played Anna in Sacha Pitoeff's production of Chekhov's play The Seagull, at the Theatre Moderne.
12.
In 1964, Delon broke up with Romy Schneider to marry Nathalie Barthelemy as he got her pregnant, and they had a son together, Anthony Delon.
13.
Romy Schneider continued to work in France during the 1970s, most notably with director Claude Sautet on five films.
14.
Romy Schneider portrayed a more mature and realistic Elisabeth of Austria in Ludwig, Visconti's film about the life of King Ludwig II of Bavaria.
15.
Romy Schneider would have starred alongside Roy Scheider and Oskar Werner.
16.
Romy Schneider acted in The Infernal Trio with Michel Piccoli, and in Garde a vue with Michel Serrault and Lino Ventura.
17.
Romy Schneider starred in Bertrand Tavernier's Death Watch, playing a dying woman whose last days are watched on national television via a camera implanted in the brain of a journalist.
18.
Romy Schneider had affairs with Willy Brandt, Louis Malle, Sammy Davis Jr.
19.
Romy Schneider had an affair with Jorge Guinle, who said that Schneider was the great love of his life.
20.
Romy Schneider had a brief affair with Jean-Louis Trintignant while filming The Train.
21.
Romy Schneider had in 1974 a brief affair with Jacques Dutronc while filming That Most Important Thing: Love.
22.
In 1975, Romy Schneider married Daniel Biasini, her private secretary; they divorced in 1981.
23.
Romy Schneider was found dead in her Paris apartment on 29 May 1982.
24.
However, Romy Schneider's friend and sister-in-law of Laurent Petin, Claude Petin, said that she no longer drank at the time of her death and that she was convinced it was a natural death.