Rosemarie Magdalena Albach-Retty
"Romy Schneider"
Romy Schneider was born Rosemarie
Magdalena Albach-Retty on September 23, 1938 in Vienna into a family of actors,
namely her paternal grandmother Rosa Albach-Retty, a stage actress and an icon
of her time, her father Wolf Albach-Retty, who would be well nigh forgotten now
weren't it for his exceptional daughter, and her mother Magda Schneider, a star
in many of the partly notable, partly notorious films during the Thousand Years
between 1933 - 1945. After her divorce from Albach-Retty in 1945, Magda
Schneider took care of Romy and supervised her career, often appearing
alongside her daughter, who had made her film debut already in 1953, aged 15,
with "Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht".
Romy and Magda in "Sissi".
Young Romy's career was also overseen by her then stepfather, Hans-Herbert
Blatzheim, whom Magda had married in 1953, a well-known and wealthy
restaurateur, who, so Romy Schneider later indicated, had an unhealthy interest
in her. Four years, from 1949 to 1953, Romy was educated in an exclusive and
even more Catholic boarding school under the supervision of the "Englische
Fräulein" (English Sisters).
In the film "Mädchenjahre einer Königin" (Ernst Marischka, 1954)
about the girl- and early womanhood of Queen Victoria of England, Romy Schneider portrayed for the first time a royal. Her breakthrough, however,
came with her portrayal of the young Princess Elisabeth of Bavaria -- later
Empress Elisabeth of Austria -- in the romantic biopic "Sissi" (1955)
and its two sequels 1956 and 1957.
Sickened by the syrupy image the "Sissi" genre had bestowed upon her,
Schneider leapt at the chance of starring in the
sombre "Christine" (1958), a remake of Max Ophüls' 1933 film
"Liebelei" based upon a play by Arthur Schnitzler. Interestingly, in
the original version of the film, Romy's mother, the rather homely Magda, had
proved, as far as I know for the one and only time, that she could act. It was
during the filming of "Christine" that she fell in love with French
actor "bad guy" Alain Delon, who co-starred in the movie. Schneider
became engaged to him in 1959, and the couple moved to Paris.
This was the start of her international film career, her escape from
"football-mom" Magda Schneider and "Daddy" Blatzheim (as he
was known) and the "sweet young thang" image that had become the only
way her Germano-Austrian audience was willing to accept her. She had no easy
start abroad, though. She once said something to the effect that to the Germans
she was a traitor to the fatherland and to the French somebody who climbs
mountains in ethnic costume and brogues.
Her ensuing career, however, took her far and even to Hollywood ("Good
Neighbor Sam", a 1964 comedy with Jack Lemmon, and the 1965 movie
"What's New, Pussycat" with Woody Allen). Mainly, however, she stayed
in France, working with film directors such as Orson Welles ("Le
Procès" of 1963, based upon Franz Kafka's "The Trial") and
Luchino Visconti ("Ludwig", a 1972 film about the life of King Ludwig
II of Bavaria in which she played a much maturer Elisabeth of Austria again).
"Sissi sticks to me just like oatmeal," she once said.
Schneider's private life was a chain of failed and finacially abusive
relationships. Dumped by Delon in 1963, she married (1966) and divorced (1975)
Harry Meyen, a renowned German stage actor, who committed suicide in 1979. In
1966 their son, David-Christopher had been born. 1975 she married Daniel
Biasini, her private secretary. They separated in 1981.
Her daughter by this marriage, Sarah Magdalena Biasini
(b. July 14, 1977), stunningly resembles Romy, although she is blonde, and even
shows a fraction of her mother's charme.
Even after the breakup of their relationship, Schneider continued starring in
films with Delon ("La Piscine", 1969). Of her other films, the
haunting, macabre (some might say pretty degenerate) "Le trio
infernal" (1974) and "Les choses de la vie" (1969), both with
Michel Piccoli, are of particular importance. I particularly loved her in
"Max et les ferrailleurs" (France 1971) another film with her
favourite co-star Michel Piccoli who, ever the seducer, as a policeman, traps
her, a hooker, into inadvertently betraying her petty criminal cronies.
A street walker with a heart of gold and an air of innocence, something only
Romy was able to get across and of which an average American audience would
certainly not approve (as they, I have a hunch, probably don't approve of the
entire French film genre).
Her last film was "La Passante du
Sans-Souci" (The Passerby, 1982).
A heavy smoker all her
life, (Romy was brave enough to have picture taken like that, here by Robert
Lebeck) Schneider also took to drinking in her later years, especially after
the death of her son David on July 5, 1981, when he was found impaled on a
fence at his stepfather's parents' house, which he was attempting to climb.
When Romy was found dead in her flat in Paris on May 29, 1982, aged only 43,
rumour had it that she had committed suicide by imbibing a lethal combination
of alcohol and sleeping pills, but no post-mortem was performed and she was
officially declared as having died of cardiac arrest, less than a year after
the death of her son David.
Romy was talented, beautiful and weak and gullible and vulnerable. Compared to
her, even the last of the legendary Hollywood divas appear one-dimensional,
wooden and cold, like Grace Kelly, or blowzy and common, like Liz Taylor. And
as to her own generation … WAS there really ever anybody worth comparing?
But what most fascinates me about her is, that even now, after almost
fifty years and having seen it for the nth time, one still longs to see the
image of that beautiful child who, in spite of all the historical inaccuracy,
doubtful filmmaking and saccharine thrown at her, was never, never kitschy
herself.
Hand me over the "Sissi" trilogy on video and I will watch it on any
rainy Sunday afternoon again (and again) without becoming bored! And yes, all
you "good taste" conscious Neuer Deutscher Film or Nouvelle
Vague afficionados, BITE ME!
This
article includes information from a Wikipedia article.
For more information and pictures go to "Das Romy Schneider
Archiv" www.romy.de.
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