Actress Maria Schneider has died in Paris after a long illness. She was 58.
Born in the French capital in 1952, she was the daughter of French actor Daniel Gelin.
Schneider is best known for playing Marlon Brando‘s lover in Last Tango In Paris. She was 19 when she was cast in Bernardo Bertolucci‘s controversial 1972 film.
The actress played a young Parisian who embarks on a relationship with Brando‘s middle-aged American businessman. The film was banned in several countries due to its explicit content.
The film provoked such controversy that Schneider resolved never to do nude scenes again, despite being briefly seen naked three years later in Jack Nicholson‘s The Passenger.
The actress battled drug addiction in the ’70s while staring mostly in low-budget European films. Her last film role was French film Cliente in 2008.