Romy Schneider

Who was Romy Schneider?

Romy Schneider was an Austrian-born film actress who held German and French citizenship. She started her career in the German Heimatfilm genre in the early 1950s when she was 15. From 1955 to 1957 she played the central character of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the Austrian Sissi trilogy. In 1958 she met Alain Delon and they became engaged; Schneider moved to France where she made successful and critically acclaimed films with some of the most notable film directors of that era. Her engagement to Delon ended in 1963 and Schneider subsequently married twice. The son from her first marriage died in an accident in 1981 when he was 14. In May 1982, aged 43, Schneider was found dead in her Paris apartment.