personalities - Austria / II. Republic of Austria 2015 - 68 Euro Cent

The daughter of a Swiss writer and a Viennese actress, Maria Schell was born on January 15, 1926 in Vienna, after the Anschluss in 1938, the family then lived in Switzerland. In 1942, Maria Schell, then called Gritli, received her first film role in the Swiss film "Steibruch" (Swiss for quarry). Then she took acting lessons and played in 1948 in her first lead role in "The Angel with the trombone" next to the then stars Paula Wessely, Attila and Paul Hörbiger and Oskar Werner. Numerous successful German films, many of them with O. W. Fischer, followed; for her role in "The Last Bridge" she received an award in 1954 at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1958 she starred alongside Yul Brynner in "The Brothers Karamazov", in the fifties and sixties followed by other Hollywood films with Gary Cooper and Glenn Ford and countless film and television productions in German, French and English-speaking countries. She was also active in the theater, and she made some successful literary adaptations - such as "The Schinderhannes" and "Nora or Ein Puppenheim". In later years, she was seen mainly in supporting roles of major Hollywood films such as in "Superman" and in German television series. Eventually, she withdrew more and more from the public and lived on an alpine hut in Carinthia. Increasing depression led to a suicide attempt, her health was severely damaged. In 2002 her brother Maximilian Schell, another internationally successful actor and Oscar winner, shot the portrait "My Sister Maria", which also addressed her growing senile dementia. On April 26, 2005, Maria Schell finally died of pneumonia. Her soulful portrayal and her "Laughing with Tears" earned her the nickname "Seelchen" created by Oskar Werner.