Thaindian News

By Madhuri Dey
Feb 4, (THAINDIAN NEWS) French actress Maria Schneider who rose to fame for her role in “Last Tango In Paris” passed away at the age of 58 on Thursday in Paris. A spokesperson from her agency Act 1 told the media that the actress had died after suffering from a long illness. It was only this much that the spokesperson revealed but sources have reported that the actress suffered from cancer before she finally lost her life to the fretful disease.

Maria Schneider was the daughter of French director Daniel Gelin and had a Romanian mother Marie-Christine Schneider. It was only at the age of 19 that Maria Schneider shot to fame with her unconventional role in “Last Tango In Paris” for which she was selected by ace director Bernardo Bertolucci. Even though Maria Schneider was the second choice of the director as the role was offered to her after actress Dominique Sanda opted out of it due to her pregnancy, she did create a hullabaloo out of it when the film was released in 1972. Her full frontal nude shots seized world wide attention owing to which the movie got banned in several nations for the controversial sex scenes. It was the famous ‘butter scene’ which showed her and actor Marlon Brando making love that hit the headlines as the scene indeed was one that broke away from the conventional frame.

Even though she gained enormous fame for the movie, she tried to break away from the image of the sex symbol that was attached to her as an aftermath of the movie which earned Oscar nominations for Marlon Brando and Bernardo Bertolucci. Maria Schneider also appeared in other movies including “The Passenger” and “Jane Eyre”.