Romy Schneider (23 September 1938 – 29 May 1982) was a film actress born in Vienna who held German and French citizenship. She started her career in the German Heimatfilm genre in the early 1950s when she was 15. From 1955 to 1957, she played the central character of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in the Austrian Sissi trilogy. Schneider moved to France where she made successful and critically acclaimed films with some of the most notable film directors of that era.
Schneider was born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach in Vienna into a family of actors that included her paternal grandmother Rosa Albach-Retty, her Austrian father Wolf Albach-Retty and her German mother, the actress Magda Schneider. After her parents' divorce in 1945, Magda took charge of Romy and her brother Wolfi, eventually supervising the young girl's career, often appearing alongside her daughter. Her career was also overseen by her stepfather, Hans Herbert Blatzheim, a noted restaurateur who Schneider indicated had an unhealthy interest in her.