Hello Vintage Appreciators;
February is Valentine’s month. The month of love, partnership and romance.
Our modern world has little regard for these qualities or for real male/female dynamics. Which is why we need to celebrate vintage sensuality as often as possible!
It’s also why I’ve chosen this month’s featured beauty… ROMY SCHNEIDER.
Schneider is a German-French actress who had much success through the 50s and 60s.
She was known for her sensual beauty and vulnerability on and off the screen. This is the main reason I chose her to celebrate vintage sensuality for the February, 2025.
The wicked harshness of this world can quickly extinguish the delicate aspects of being a feminine woman.
Hence, the hard exteriors so many women have adopted today. The flip side of this is a tragic sense of self.
It takes tremendous work and self awareness to stay ‘whole’.
The Old Hollywood Newsletter is a nice little reminder of the fullness of sensuality.
So, let’s get on with discovering more about the lovely and talented ROMY SCHNEIDER!
Please enjoy this issue. Thank you for reading and remember…
Stay Sensual, Dyann Bridges – Editor-in-Chief – Voice Over Artist and Writer.
FAST FACTS ABOUT ROMY SCHNEIDER
Romy Schneider was born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach on 23 September 1938 in Vienna, Austria into a family of actors. She was an actress of German and French descent.
Romy was an only child.
She passed away on 29 May, 1982 in Paris, France of a heart attack.
Just the year before, her son died after being impaled on a fence. It was said the grief she suffered never really subsided and she began drinking heavily. She also smoked about three packs a day.
Her mother and father were both actors who recognized the need and desire in Romy to be an actress.
So, they allowed her to make her film debut at the age of 15. Romy’s big breakthrough through came two years later in the very popular movie trilogy Sissi (1955).
Her mother, supervising her daughter’s career, immediately approved Romy’s participation in Christine (1958). This film is the remake of Max Ophüls‘s Playing at Love (1933), where Romy’s mother, Magda Schneider, once starred herself.
During the shooting, she fell in love with her co-star Alain Delon and eventually moved with him to his home of Paris from West Germany.
They announced their engagement in 1959.
At that time, she started her international career collaborating with famous directors such as Luchino Visconti and Orson Welles, John Ford, and Sacha Pitoëff.
This is when Schneider made a very brief appearance on Hollywood silver screens. included a starring role in Good Neighbor Sam (1964), a comedy with Jack Lemmon, and What’s New Pussycat? (1965), in which Schneider co-starred with Peter O’Toole, Peter Sellers, and Woody Allen.
Perhaps the hardest thing she endured was the death of her son when he was just 14 years old. He was impaled on a fence in 1981 and ruptured his femoral artery.
She never managed to recover from this loss and died on 29 May 1982 in Paris. Although, it was suggested she committed suicide caused by an overdose of sleeping pills, she was declared to have died from cardiac arrest. It’s important to note too that she was drinking heavily during this time. Mostly likely due to the grief she was experiencing and smoking up to three packs of cigarettes a day.
Schneider appeared as one of 28 women under the banner “We’ve had abortions!” (German: Wir haben abgetrieben!) on the cover page of the West German magazine Stern on 6 June 1971. In that issue, 374 women publicly stated that they had had pregnancies terminated, which at that time was illegal.
ROMY SCHNEIDER’S TOP MOVIES
SISSI (1955)
This is the first of a trilogy of movies about Elisabeth “Sissi” of Austria. In this cinematic version, the vibrant young princess catches the eye of her sister’s fiancé, Emperor Franz Josef.
This was a major role for Romy at the time and thrust her into the hearts of moviegoers everywhere.
The character was based on the real person known as Empress Elisabeth of Austria who was a member of the House of Wittelsbach. Elisabeth; nicknamed Sissi, was part of this German, Bavarian dynasty.
INFERNO (1964)
If you want to experience true experimental avante garde cinema that lays on sensuality in thick layers, have look at this…
Schneider was 26 years old at the time and the director, Henri-Georges Clouzot says it all started with insomnia. He had an idea, which was to dramatize the feeling of anxiety which he suffered from every night and which was the cause of his insomnia.
Before Clouzot became a director he was a screenplay writer. So, he wrote the beginnings of what would become, Inferno. He quickly realized, that it was fairly easy to convey to an audience that a character can have ten obsessions.
However, it’s not possible to share much about the obsessions in two hours because they took ten years to build up in the character.
Inferno is a semi-pathological film. The main character is in a pathological state, but there are plenty of moments when he’s normal. For the early 60s, this has some very interesting and what would be considered ‘simplistic’ special effects.
However, the final effect is magic. Have a look below…
THAT MOST IMPORTANT THING: LOVE (1975)
This film is shot like a we are watching a movie being shot. In essence, it’s exposed the “dignities and indignities” of being an actor.
Unless you do the work of an actor, I don’t believe it’s possible to fully understand how fully human you have to be to do it well.
You must be willing to expose yourself in many ways. All while an audience looked on staying completely silent and fully clothed.
Have a peek behind the curtain….
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ROMY SCHNEIDER’S LOVE LIFE
Schneider is often mentioned in the same breath as French actor Alain Delon.
They had a highly celebrated, deep and torrid affair after they starred together in Christine (1958).
Ironically, the film Christine was a remake of Max Ophüls‘s 1933 film Liebelei.
Liebelei was the film that Romy’s mother, Magda Schneider, had played the same role as she did in Christine.
In 1964, Delon broke up with Schneider to marry Nathalie Barthélémy as he got her pregnant, and they had a son together, Anthony Delon.
Delon divorced Barthélémy in 1969, after which he kept pursuing Schneider, but she always refused to get back together.
However, they remained close lifelong friends and continued to work together in such films as La Piscine (The Swimming Pool, 1968) and The Assassination of Trotsky (1972).
Schneider had two marriages and two children.
After Delon had broken up with her in 1964, she married German actor and director Harry Meyen in July of 1966.
They had a boy together, David-Christopher (1966–1981). Sadly, David died in July 1981, at the age of 14. He was attempting to climb the spiked fence at his stepfather’s parents’ home and puncturing his femoral artery in the process.
The marriage to Meyen was always difficult. So they divorced in 1975.
Below are Romy Schneider and Harry Meyen…
In 1975, Schneider had a short marriage to her former secretary Daniel Biasini. They had a daughter together; Sarah Biasini . They divorced in 1981.
Below are pictures of Romy Schneider and Daniel Biasini…
After her marriages (and some while she was married) Schneider had a series of affairs.
Here is a short list; Willy Brandt, Louis Malle (1963), Sammy Davis Jr. (1964), Oswalt Kolle (1964), Giovanni Volpi (1964–1970s), Luis Miguel Dominguín (1970s) and actor Bruno Ganz (early 1970s).
She also had an affair with Jorge Guinle (1965), who said that Schneider was the great love of his life.
Pictures of Jorge Guinle and Romy Schneider…
Schneider had a brief affair with Jean-Louis Trintignant while filming The Train (1973) and another brief affair with Jacques Dutronc while filming That Most Important Thing: Love in 1974.
Schneider’s last romantic partner was film producer Laurent Pétin (born 1949).
In her 2018 biography Romy Schneider intime, Alice Schwarzer stated that Schneider confided to her that she had sexual relationships with women and was deeply in love with her close friend Simone Signoret.
See pictures of Simone and Romy below…
Quotes By ROMY SCHNEIDER
“Life must go on. My work gives me strength.” – ROMY SCHNEIDER
“Memories are the best things in life, I think.” – ROMY SCHNEIDER
“You must not quote to me what I once said. I am wiser now.” – ROMY SCHNEIDER
“I’ve worked with the biggest tyrants: [Otto Preminger] Preminger, [Orson Welles] Welles, [Luchino Visconti] Visconti. Despots – they have contempt for most actors. When they meet someone who stands up to them, everything’s great.” – ROMY SCHNEIDER
“I am nothing in life, but everything on the screen.” – ROMY SCHNEIDER
“I am not afraid of nothing in the world. Except ego.” – ROMY SCHNEIDER
Thank you for your interest in The Body House Chronicles and vintage sensuality.
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