Maria Schneider Dead at 58

Maria Schneider, a French actress, has died after a lengthy battle with cancer. The Paris-born actress was 58 years old. Maria Schneider was most famous for her role in "Last Tango in Paris" with Marlon Brando.

Although many websites are not stating a cause of death for the actress, the article on the All Voices website reveals the actress had cancer.

Born in 1952, Schneider began her career in the movie "Les Femmes" in 1969, and continued to star in French films and television until 2008, when she retired due to health reasons. It was for her role in the movie "Last Tango in Paris" with Marlon Brando that she is remembered. This role defined her in a way she never wanted.

Born to a single mom and a dad who did not acknowledge her, the young girl aspired to be an actress and she finally got that chance with her first role. According to a New York Times article, Maria went to her dad, Daniel Gelin, who was a model and actor, who introduced her to Bridget Bardot. Ms. Bardot gave the teen a room and got her introduced to an agent at the William Morris Agency. At that agency, she landed small roles and the eventual part in "Last Tango in Paris."

Schneider is most famous for her fifth movie and, according to a LA Times article, it was a movie the actress says she should not have made. In "The Last Tango in Paris," she plays the role of a young girl who has a sexual fling with the American businessman character played by Marlon Brando in an empty apartment.

In that film, 19-year-old Schneider had scenes which showed frontal nudity and included a simulated anal sex scene. The anal sex scene, which is her most famous scene, was the most hated by the actress. The frontal nudity made her a sex symbol, which the actress hated but the film brought Oscar nods to Brando and Bernardo Berttolucci, who was the producer of the film.

With the unexpected fame that anal sex scene brought the actress came humiliation. She refused to do films where the role called for it, so her film career declined in the '70s. The actress battled drug addiction and drug overdoses for the remainder of the decade. Schneider was able to recover in the early '80s and get back into filming movies as well as television shows, and made about two dozen films within her lifetime.

Resources

Huffington Post

All Voices

LA Times

NY Times

Wikipedia Page