Ravishing Romy

At 16, Vienna native Romy Schneider was a star, launched into the limelight thanks to her performance as Empress Elizabeth of Austria in the first of three Sissi films; at 42, the actress Coco Chanel called “the ultimate incarnation of the ideal woman” was dead of a heart attack, her attenuated life filled to the brim with anguishing adversity. It is not necessary to emphasize the tragedies of Schneider’s time on this earth; in this series, we will revisit her triumphs: the squeaky-clean teen ingénue of Heimatfilm baubles who became one of the most formidable performers of her generation, taking firm charge of her career and setting out to work with a who’s who of international auteurs, including Orson Welles (The Trial), Luchino Visconti (Ludwig), Andrzej Żuławski (That Most Important Thing: Love), Claude Sautet (Cesar and Rosalie, The Things of Life) and many others. An adept comedienne with a boundless capacity for pathos, a great beauty who could be beastly on-screen when called upon, and a bona fide capital-s Star who drew justifiable comparisons to Dietrich and Monroe, there was only one Romy, and we’ll be showing her at her very best.