Romy Schneider Actress - Date of Birth 23 September 1938, Vienna, Austria

Date of Death 29 May 1982, Paris, France (cardiac arrest)

Birth Name Rosemarie Magdelena Albach-Retty

Nickname Puppele

Height 5' 3½" (1.61 m)

Mini Bio (1) Romy Schneider was born on 23 September 1938 in Vienna, Austria into a family of actors. Making her film debut at the age of 15, her breakthrough came two years later in the very popular trilogy Sissi (1955). Her mother, supervising her daughter's career, immediately approved Romy's participation in Christine (1958), the remake of Max Ophüls's Liebelei (1933), where Magda Schneider once starred herself. During the shooting, she fell in love with her co-star Alain Delon and eventually moved with him to Paris. At that time, she started her international career collaborating with famous directors such as Luchino Visconti and Orson Welles. After Delon had broken up with her in 1964, she married Harry Meyen shortly after. Although she gave birth to a boy, David-Christopher, their relationship was difficult, so they divorced in 1975. Being unsatisfied with her personal life, she turned to alcohol and drugs, but her cinematic career -especially in France- remained intact. She was the first actress, receiving the new created César Award as "Best Actress" for her role in That Most Important Thing: Love (1975). Three years later, she was awarded again for A Simple Story (1978). After a short marriage to her former secretary Daniel Biasini, being the father of her daughter Sarah Biasini, she suffered the hardest blow of her life when her son was impaled on a fence in 1981. She never managed to recover from this loss and died on 29 May 1982 in Paris. Although it was suggested she committed suicide caused by an overdose of sleeping pills, she was declared to have died from cardiac arrest.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: fippi2000

Daniel Biasini (18 December 1975 - 1981) (divorced) (1 child)

Harry Meyen (15 July 1966 - 1975) (divorced) (1 child)

Daughter of Wolf Albach-Retty and Magda Schneider

Granddaughter of Rosa Albach-Retty and Karl Albach.

Engaged to Alain Delon from 1959 to 1964.

Mother of Sarah Biasini and David Haubenstock.

Portrayed on a postage stamp issued on Oct. 3, 1998 by the French Post Office.

In 8 Women (2002), when Louise (Emmanuelle Béart) shows a picture of her former employer, it is a picture of Romy Schneider.

Good friends with German Bundeskanzler Willy Brandt. She was one of many celebrities supporting his politics of social novation.

30 April 2005: Ranked #1 in a list by tabloid "Bild" searching the "50 most beautiful Germans ever".

Was good friends with French actor Jean-Claude Brialy and French TV presenter Michel Drucker.

Cesar award winner.

Stepfather was Hans-Herbert Blatzheim, a pub owner in Cologne/ Germany.

Her role as Chantal in Garde à vue (1981) was played by Monica Bellucci in the American remake of the film Under Suspicion (2000).

Was good friends with director Luchino Visconti.

Shares birthday with French stage actor Jean Piat, singer Ray Charles, actor Gino Paoli and Spanish singer Julio Iglesias.

Had a younger brother named Wolfgang Albach-Retty.

Her first husband Harry Meyen, a stage director, committed suicide in Hamburg on 15 April 1979.

Is buried at Boissy-Sans-Avoir cemetery.

Was nicknamed "Miss worried".

Her son - with Harry Meyen - David-Christopher (David Haubenstock) died in France on 5 July 1981 after being impaled on a fence.

After her first movie, Wolf Albach-Retty wrote his daughter: "Put your childhood in your pocket and run away because that's everything you have!".

Pedro Almodóvar's film All About My Mother (1999) is partially dedicated to her.

She never overcame the loss of her son. She suffered from depressions after his death resulting in an alcohol problem.

Pro-choice activist and supporter of the feminist movement.

1953: Graduated at the Goldstein boarding school near Salzburg, Austria.

24 November 2006: Ranked #3 in a survey by network ZDF searching Germany's all-time favorite actor, which made her the highest ranked woman.

2000: Is portrayed on a 110 + 50 pfennig postage stamp by Deutsche Post.

Was good friends with Marlene Dietrich, one of her idols.

1999: Was voted "Greatest actress of all time" by the readers of French newspaper "Le Parisien".

Her last longtime companion was Laurent Pétin, who found her dead in her Paris apartment on 29 May 1982. Although she was declared to have died from cardiac arrest, the media suggested that she committed suicide by taking a cocktail of alcohol and sleeping pills.

Alain Delon placed a piece of paper with the following words on her tomb: "Tu n'as jamais été aussi belle, tu vois j'ai appris quelques mots allemands pour toi: Ich liebe dich meine Liebe" (You have never been so beautful, you see that I learned some words in German for you: I love you my love).

30 October 1974: Her appearance on Je später der Abend... (1973) made German television history when she passionately remarked to Burkhard Driest, a bank robber and author: "Sie gefallen mir. Sie gefallen mir sehr." (I like you. I like you a lot.).

The Prix Romy Schneider, named after her, has been awarded to young actresses by the French movie business since 1984.

Her favorite co-star was the French actor Michel Piccoli.

Best friends with French actor Michel Piccoli.

Was close friends with Yves Montand.

Is portrayed by Yvonne Catterfeld in "Romy" (2011) and Jessica Schwarz in Romy (2009).

Was once considered and in talks with director Claude Lelouch to play the part of Anne Gauthier (that eventually went to Anouk Aimée) in A Man and a Woman (1966), but couldn't come to an agreement.

Engaged to Horst Buchholz (1957-1958).

Recorded with Michel Piccoli the song entitled "Helene", for their film The Things of Life (1970)).

In January 1981, Alain Delon and Romy were named "the actors preferred by the public" in a French magazine.

She smoked up to three packets of Marlboro cigarettes per day.

A telephone chart representing Romy circulated in France in 1994, at the time of a campaign celebrating French cinema, with images of actors and actresses extracted from films and showing them on the telephone. The phone card with Romy, was a photograph extracted from La Piscine (1969)).

Good friend, Simone Signoret, convinced Romy to do her last film, La passante du Sans-Souci (1982), after the tragic death of her son, David Haubenstock.

Friends with Austrian actor Helmut Berger and French designer Coco Chanel. She would often wear clothes design by Chanel during the 1960s and 1970s.

Older half-sister of Sacha Darwin.

Was close friends with her Sissi (1955) co-star, Karlheinz Böhm.

She and Pascale Ogier are the only actors to receive a posthumous César nomination, for their performances in La passante du Sans-Souci (1982) and Full Moon in Paris (1984), respectively.

Claude Pétin - Schneider's friend and Laurent Pétin's sister - says that Schneider no longer drank at the time of her death, and that her cardiac arrest was due to a kidney operation she had months before.

Was strongly considered to play the title role in Mademoiselle (1966) by the time Georges Franju had been approached to direct the project. But Franju had grown enamored with the acting skills of his frequent collaborator Emmanuelle Riva, whom he introduced to screenwriter Jean Genet as his ideal pick for the part. Genet was very enthusiastic about the idea and, when Franju mentioned Schneider, he stated: 'You've shown me a jewel, I won't swop it against a false pearl, and German at that'. Franju never helmed the project and later remarked that he would have made the movie straight away had he agreed to Romy's casting, but he had been too partial to Emmanuelle. The film was eventually directed by Tony Richardson and starred Jeanne Moreau.

She was a favorite of Coco Chanel and one of very few clients that Chanel would see personally.

Had a striking resemblance to her friend Simone Signoret. Although they never appeared in a movie together, Romy appeared in Inferno (1964) alongside Signoret's daughter, Catherine Allégret.

Was fluent in three languages: her native German, French and English.

She was in a relationship with Swiss actor Bruno Ganz at the beginning of the 70s.

L'Heure Bleue by Guerlain was her favorite perfume.

Was featured on the poster of the 36th César Awards.

Sissi sticks to me just like oatmeal.

Life must go on. My work gives me strength.

I have the feeling that I was born in Vienna in order to live in Paris.

[Alain Delon] Delon? Nothing is colder than a love that has passed away.

Memories are the best things in life, I think.

You must not quote to me what I once said. I am wiser now.

I've worked with the biggest tyrants: [Otto Preminger] Preminger, [Orson Welles] Welles, [Luchino Visconti] Visconti. Despots - they have contempt for most actors. When they meet someone who stands up to them, everything's great.

I am nothing in life, but everything on the screen.

One can remain eternally young if each day, one grows rich by marvelous moments. I am convinced that at the end of my life, all these sufferings and all these joys, the memories, the goods like the bad ones, give us a heat which resembles those that give us and which love us.

I cannot live without having a role to work.

I wish to present myself in front of the camera, each time under the features of a different woman, I would like to live and apprehend the problems, the conflicts, the feelings and the impulses of women radically different from me.

I am not afraid of nothing in the world. Except ego.

I want to learn, I want to develop, I want to discover all that is in me.

[In a letter to her friend Simone Signoret] I don't know anything about life, but everything about cinema.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002769/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm