In the film Mädchenjahre einer Königin (Girlhood of a Queen, Ernst Marischka, 1954) Romy Schneider for the first time portrayed a royal. Interestingly, this Austrian movie is about the early years of Queen Victoria, in particular her first encounter with Prince Albert. Schneider's breakthrough, however, came with her portrayal of Princess Elisabeth of Bavaria -- later to become Empress Elisabeth of Austria -- in the romantic biopic Sissi (1955) and its two sequels (1956 and 1957).

Fed up with the saccharine image these movies had bestowed upon her, Schneider leapt at the chance to star in the much more sombre Christine (1958), a remake of Max Ophüls's 1933 film Liebelei (itself based upon a play by Arthur Schnitzler). It was during the filming of Christine that Schneider fell in love with French actor Alain Delon, who co-starred in the movie. She abruptly left Germany to join him in Paris, creating a national scandal. Schneider became engaged to Delon in 1959.

This meant the beginning of Schneider's international film career, which also brought her to Hollywood (Good Neighbor Sam, a 1964 comedy with Jack Lemmon, and the 1965 movie What's New, Pussycat? with Woody Allen). More importantly, however, Schneider stayed in France, working with film directors such as Orson Welles (Le Procès of 1963, based upon Franz Kafka's The Trial) and Luchino Visconti. She also gave remarkable and much lauded performances in John Ford's play "'T'is a pity she's a whore" and in the film "Boccacio '70" (in the episode entitled "The Job"), where her beauty and sensuality contrasted with the more obvious charms of Anita Ekberg and Sophia Loren.

Ludwig, Visconti's 1972 film about the life of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, featured her as a much more mature, complex and bitter Elisabeth of Austria. "Sissi sticks to me just like oatmeal," Schneider once said. Reportedly, a portrait of her taken from the Visconti film was the only one of her roles she had displayed in her home.

Romy Schneider's private life was rather turbulent. Dumped by Delon in 1963, she married (1966) and divorced (1975) Harry Meyen (1924 - 1979), a German actor who later committed suicide. The couple had a son, David-Christopher (1966 - 1981). In 1975 Schneider married Daniel Biasini, her private secretary; they separated in 1981. Her daughter by her second marriage, Sarah Magdalena Biasini (Born July 14, 1977), is now an actress who startlingly resembles her mother, and has been a target of German tabloids for quite some time.

Even after the breakup of her relationship with Alain Delon, Schneider continued starring in films with Delon (La Piscine -- The Swimming Pool -- of 1969 and "The Assassination of Trotsky"). He remained a lifelong friend, coming to her aid during difficult times. Of her other films, the macabre Le Trio infernal (1974) with Michel Piccoli is worth mentioning and what may have been her greatest performance, a chilling turn in "Garde a vue" with Michel Piccoli and Lino Ventura (1981).

In 1980 she starred in Bertrand Tavernier's prophetic La mort en direct (Deathwatch), based on D. G. Compton's novel, playing a dying woman whose last days are watched on national television via a camera implanted in the brain of a journalist (Harvey Keitel). Her last film was La Passante du Sans-Souci (The Passerby, 1982).

A smoker all her life, Schneider also took to drinking, especially after the sudden death, on July 5, 1981, of her 14-year-old son, David, who was found impaled on a fence, which he had attempted to climb, at the home of his stepfather's parents. When Romy Schneider was found dead in her apartment in Paris, France on May 29, 1982, at the age of only 43, rumour had it that she had committed suicide by taking a lethal cocktail of alcohol and sleeping pills. However, no post-mortem examination was carried out and she was officially declared to have died of "cardiac arrest".