This sultry brunette actress began appearing in secondary parts in 1969 but came to prominence opposite Marlon Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci's study of existential eroticism, "Last Tango in Paris" (1972). Maria Schneider also starred opposite Jack Nicholson in Antonioni's "The Passenger" (1975) before her career was tarnished by scandal and drug use. Her high profile relationship with American heiress Joan Townsend had a negative effect as well and her subsequent career has consisted of mostly undistinguished, low-budget European films along the lines of "Memoirs of a French Whore" (1979) and
