Maria Schneider died Thursday in Paris at the age of 58, the French actress whose sex scenes with Marlon Brando in “Last Tango in Paris” set a new standard for explicitness onscreen.
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Last Tango in Paris a 1972 Italian romantic drama film directed by Bernardo Bertolucci which portrays a recent American widower who takes up an anonymous sexual relationship with a young, soon-to-be-married Parisian woman. It stars Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, and Jean-Pierre Léaud. Source: Wikipedia |
Ms. Schneider was only 19 when the Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci chose her above a hundred other actresses for the role of the free-spirited, mysterious Jeanne in “Last Tango” because, he once said, she seemed “like a Lolita, but more perverse.”
The highly criticized movie turned Maria Schneider a sex symbol and not what she wanted which is a movie star or actress. In 2007, Schneider told The Daily Mail of London,
"I felt very sad because I was treated like a sex symbol,”
“I wanted to be recognized as an actress, and the whole scandal and aftermath of the film turned me a little crazy and I had a breakdown. Now, though, I can look at the film and like my work in it.”
Rest in peace to Maria Schneider.
