Maria Schneider (actress)
French actress (1952-2011)
Maria-Hélène Schneider (27 March 1952 – 3 February 2011), known professionally as Maria Schneider, was a French actress.
She first appeared on stage in Paris at the age of 15 and then moved on to work in films, initially as an extra, but had already advanced to more substantial roles by the age of 20.
Schneider achieved international recognition at the age of 19 for her performance opposite Marlon Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci's controversial Last Tango in Paris (1972). The film became controversial for its explicit sexual content and its infamous sexual assault scene.
In 1975 she starred opposite Jack Nicholson in Michelangelo Antonioni's critically acclaimed The Passenger. Although the film showcased her abilities, a reputation for walking out of films during production resulted in her becoming unwelcome in the industry. However, she re-established stability in her personal and professional life in the early 1980s, and became an advocate for equality and improving the working conditions for actresses.
She continued acting in film and TV until a few years before she died in 2011 after a long illness.
Early life and family
Schneider was born in Paris to Daniel Gélin, a French actor, and Marie-Christine Schneider from Romania, a model who ran a bookshop in Paris. Gélin was married to actress and producer Danièle Delorme during the affair and his lack of fatherly involvement was deeply felt by his daughter.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Maria Schneider (actress)” is french actress (1952-2011). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Maria, Schneider and actress, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q224071. VIAF identifies the subject as 100917565. The Library of Congress control number is no96065419. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952, 2011, 1972 and 1975.
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This entry incorporates text from “Maria Schneider (actress)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.