From “Sissi” to serious

The Austrian-born actress Romy Schneider had an international career that included both Hollywood and European films. Although she was born in Vienna on September 23, 1938, she spent relatively few years in Austria, and most of her 58 films were made in France, where she lived for the greater part of her adult life.

Romy Schneider's role in Die Halbzarte was very
different from her saccharine “Sissi” image.

Romy Schneider was only 14 when she appeared in her first film (billed as Romy Schneider-Albach) playing the cinematic daughter of her own real mother, actress Magda Schneider, in a German film called Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht (1953). In her third film (Mädchenjahre einer Königin, 1953) and first starring role, she played a young Queen Victoria. But it was another royal role that stereotyped Schneider's image for years to come. In the sentimentally romantic Sissi (1955) and its two sequels, Schneider played Princess Elisabeth of Bavaria, the future Empress Elisabeth (“Sissi”) of Austria.

Even decades later, Romy absolutely hated it when admirers continued to identify her with the sweetly naive Sissi. In her diary she wrote: “I was no Sissi... Even at ten I wasn't Sissi, much less at 18. ...I was never Sissi.” After Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin (1957), her third Sissi film, Schneider refused to make a proposed fourth, preferring to move on to more complex characterizations. Despite playing very different roles in Robinson soll nicht sterben (1956), Monpti (1957), Mädchen in Uniform, Christine, and Die Halbzarte (all 1958), Schneider found it difficult to escape the saccharine Sissi image created by only three of her many films.

It was in 1958 during work on the French-Italian coproduction Christine that Schneider met the French actor Alain Delon (1935- ). The Austrian-French couple began a stormy affair and Schneider soon moved to Paris to live with Delon. They were engaged to be married (and Romy was in Hollywood) when Delon left her for another woman in 1963. Despite the painful breakup, they remained friends until Romy's death, and Delon was probably the greatest love in her life. One of Schneider's best films, La Piscine/The Swimming Pool (1969) later reunited the two on screen. But it was Romy Schneider's performance in Luchino Visconti's 1961 film Boccaccio 70 that finally caught Hollywood's serious attention.

In The Cardinal—filmed in New England, Hollywood, the Vatican, and Vienna—Romy Schneider plays Anne-Marie Lederbur, a student who falls in love with a priest (Tom Tryon). DIE AMERIKAREISE Romy Schneider's first trip to America was in 1958 at the invitation of Walt Disney and agent Paul Kohner. Although she enjoyed the star treatment and her whirlwind tour of New York, Los Angeles and Disneyland, her Disney film offer fell through and Romy had to wait until 1963 for her Hollywood debut.

As is all too often the case with European actors, Hollywood failed to use Schneider's talents wisely. Despite her striking beauty and talent, her three Columbia films are hardly known today. Romy's first U.S. movie was The Victors (1962), in which she has a minor role alongside better-known European actresses: Melina Mercouri, Jeanne Moreau, Elke Sommer, and fellow Austrian Senta Berger. Her next two Hollywood films were The Cardinal (1963, directed by the Austrian Otto Preminger, filmed in the U.S. and in Europe) and Good Neighbor Sam (1963) with Jack Lemmon. Although it was a box-office success when it was originally released, the light comedy Good Neighbor Sam has not aged that well. Her other English-language film work includes The Trial (1963, directed by Orson Welles in Europe), What's New Pussycat? (1964), Triple Cross (1966), and Bloodline (1979).

The bright and talented Romy—fluent in German, French, and English, and with 25 films behind her—seemed to have little future in Hollywood. Despite a seven-film deal with Columbia, after three movies and barely a year in Beverly Hills, Schneider returned to Europe in the fall of 1964.

During a visit to Berlin the 26-year-old Romy met the 36-year-old German stage director Harry Meyen (Haubenstock). They married in 1966 and lived for a time in Berlin, where their son David Christopher was born. But by 1968 Romy was once again working in France, her adopted homeland. It was in France where she made the majority of her films. In the 1970s and '80s, Romy Schneider's name was better known there than in Austria or Germany. She was honored with the French “César” film award in 1976, 1979, and 1981. Partly because of bad feelings about how the German (and Austrian) press had treated her, she did not make any films in Germany for 16 years. (She claimed it was a lack of any decent German film offers.) It was not until Gruppenbild mit Dame in 1977 that Romy Schneider once again appeared in a German-produced film.

Schneider's private life was often overshadowed by personal tragedy. Her parents divorced in 1945 when she was still a young child. In addition to her breakup with Delon, she had two failed marriages, and her 14-year-old son David Christopher (with husband Harry Meyen) died in an accident just a year before her own death in Paris in 1982.

N E X T > Romy Schneider's Films

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