maria schneider actress

Last Tango in Paris star Maria Schneider dies at 58

   Maria Schneider Dies At 58

Maria Schneider, an actress who appeared in the movie, “Last Tango in Paris”, has died. She appeared with Marlon Brando on that film. A rep has not provided a reason for the actress’ death.
Maria Schneider, A French national, was the last minute replacement when another actress, Dominique Sanda left the film. Schneider was only 19 when she got chosen to play the role of Jeanne.
Bernardo Bertolucci directed the film. And it’s a story of an affair between Marlon Brando’s character and Maria Schneider’s character, Jeanne. At that time, in 1972, the movie was too risque as it featured sodomy and nudity.

Michelangelo Antonioni, still from The Passenger, 1975, center, Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider.



Michelangelo Antonioni, still from The Passenger, 1975, center, Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider.

The French actress Maria Schneider, who in 1972 helped rewrite cinema history with the sex scenes she filmed with Marlon Brando for Last Tango in Paris, has died at the age of 58 after a long illness.

Although she went on to make other films, including The Passenger with Jack Nicholson, nothing she did could ever equal Last Tango in terms of worldwide publicity - nor brilliant acting, if you believe the fans of the film. Her name cropped most often in the gossip columns, as she battled drug addiction and suffered unhappy relationships with male and female lovers.

Her fame came by chance. Director Bernardo Bertolucci originally wanted Dominique Sanda for the role but she became pregnant and had to pull out.

Looking for a replacement, Bertolucci chose the relatively unknown Schneider because, he said, she seemed "like a Lolita, but more perverse".

Baby-faced and voluptuous, Schneider played Jeanne, a free-spirited young Parisienne who enters into a torrid physical relationship (they agree not to ask each other's names) with a recently widowed American businessman, played by Marlon Brando.

Much of the film is set in an empty apartment near the Pont de Bir-Hakeim . What shocked audiences at the time, and got it a banned in many countries, was the famous 'butter scene'. This involved the Brando character pinning Jeanne to the floor and, with the help of a pat of butter, appearing to perform anal intercourse.

Although both actors have been praised for their raw acting performances in the film, both later expressed regrets about making the movie which Bertolucci admitted came out of his own sexual fantasies. He said he had "once dreamed of seeing a beautiful nameless woman on the street and having sex with her without ever knowing who she was".

Schneider, who was paid $4,000 for the role, told an interviewer in 2007: "I felt very sad because I was treated like a sex symbol. I wanted to be recognised 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."

The butter scene, she said, was not in the original script and was a last-minute improvisation of Brando's. "I felt humiliated, and to be honest I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci," she said. "After the scene, Marlon didn't console me or apologise. Thankfully, there was just one take."

Marlon Brando, who was a huge star the time - Last Tango came out in the same year as The Godfather - also regretted the film. Not because of the 'butter scene', but because he invested too personally in the role.

He too "felt raped and humiliated" by the film, telling Bertolucci: "I was completely and utterly violated by you. I will never make another film like that." He refused to speak to Bertolucci for 15 years.

Bertolucci, who went on to make The Last Emperor and Stealing Beauty, said yesterday that he wished he could have apologised to Schneider.

"Her death has come too early, before I could give her a tender embrace and... apologise to her at least once," he said. "Maria accused me of having robbed her of her youth and only today am I wondering whether there wasn't some truth to that."

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