Romy Schneider

Romy Schneider (; born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach; 23 September 1938 – 29 May 1982) was a German-French actress. She began her career in the German 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, and later reprised the role in a more mature version in Luchino Visconti's Ludwig (1973). Schneider moved to France, where she made successful and critically acclaimed films with some of the most notable film directors of that era. Early life Schneider was born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach in Vienna, six months after the Anschluss of Austria into the German Reich, to actors Magda Schneider and Wolf Albach-Retty. Her paternal grandmother, Rosa Albach-Retty, was also an actress. Schneider's mother was German while her father was Austrian. Four weeks after Romy's birth, the parents took her to Schönau am Königssee in Germany where she and later her brother Wolf-Dieter (born 1941) grew up with their grandparents Franz Xaver and Maria Schneider on the country estate . In her first year, Romy was cared for by a governess. Her parents were very rarely present due to their acting engagements. In 1943, they separated and were divorced in 1945. In September 1944, Schneider was enrolled in the elementary school of Schönau and from July 1949 she attended the girls' boarding school at , a private secondary school of the Augustinian Canonesses of the Congregation of Notre Dame in Elsbethen near Salzburg. Already during her schooldays, she discovered her passion for acting which is why she was often on stage at theatrical performances at the residential school. In her diary entry of 10 June 1952, she wrote: "If it were up to me, I would immediately become an actress. ... Every time I see a nice movie, my first thoughts are about the idea: I definitely have to become an actress. Yes! I have to!" On 12 July 1953, she left the residential school Goldenstein with the degree of Mittlere Reife. After the summer holidays, she moved to Cologne to join her mother who lived there with the restaurateur and entrepreneur .