Maria Margarethe Anna Schell (15 January 1926, Vienna – 26 April 2005, Preitenegg, Carinthia) was an Austrian/Swiss actress, who won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival in 1956 for Gervaise. The daughter of a Swiss author and an Austrian actress, she was the older sister of actor Maximilian Schell, and lesser-known actors Carl Schell and Immy (Immaculata) Schell.
She starred in such films as Dr. Holl (1951), So Little Time (1952), The Heart of the Matter (1953), Gervaise (1956), Le notti bianche (1957), Rose Bernd (1957), The Brothers Karamazov (1958) playing the role of Grushenka, The Hanging Tree (1959), Cimarron (1960), and Superman (1978). She played Mother Maria in the sequel to Lilies of the Field called Christmas Lilies of the Field. She starred opposite such actors as Yul Brynner, Marcello Mastroianni, Suzy Delair, Gary Cooper and Marlon Brando. She also had three guest appearances in the television series, Der Kommissar. Her final public appearance… read more
Maria Margarethe Anna Schell (15 January 1926, Vienna – 26 April 2005, Preitenegg, Carinthia) was an Austrian/Swiss actress, who won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival in 1956 for Gervaise. The daughter of a Swiss author and an Austrian actress, she was the older sister of actor Maximilian Schell, and lesser-known actors Carl Schell and Immy (Immaculata) Schell.
She starred in such films as Dr. Holl (1951), So Little Time (1952), The Heart of the Matter (1953), Gervaise (1956), Le notti bianche (1957), Rose Bernd (1957), The Brothers Karamazov (1958) playing the role of Grushenka, The Hanging Tree (1959), Cimarron (1960), and Superman (1978). She played Mother Maria in the sequel to Lilies of the Field called Christmas Lilies of the Field. She starred opposite such actors as Yul Brynner, Marcello Mastroianni, Suzy Delair, Gary Cooper and Marlon Brando. She also had three guest appearances in the television series, Der Kommissar. Her final public appearance was at the premiere of her brother Maximilian’s documentary film, My Sister Maria (2002).
Schell was married twice, first to Horst Hächler and second to Veit Relin. Her daughter by her second marriage, actress Marie Theres Relin (born 1966), who was married to Bavarian playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz and has three children, made a media and Internet appearance as a spokeswoman for housewives (If Pigs Could Fly. Die Hausfrauenrevolution, 2004).Maria Schell lived reclusively in ill health in Carinthia in the Austrian Alps until her death from pneumonia in Preitenegg, Austria on 26 April 2005, aged 79. —wikipedia
