Maria Schell dies

The actress Maria Schell has died of pneumonia in Vienna. She was 79 years old.

The actress Maria Schell has died of pneumonia in Vienna. She was 79 years old. Although her appearances in movies have been rare in the last three decades, Maria Schell played in several major classics of the 50's and 60's. Among others «The Last Bridge» in 1954 for which she won an award in Cannes, «Gervaise» in 1956 for which she won another prize in Venice, LuchinoVisconti's adaptation of Dostoyevsky's «White Nights» in 1957 with Marcello Mastroianni, Richard Brooks' adaptation of Dostoyevsky's «The Brothers Karamazov» in 1958 and the western «The Hanging Tree» opposite Gary Cooper in 1959. In the seventies, Maria Schell appeared sporadically on the big screen – to name a few titles, «Voyage of the Damned» in 1976 and «Superman» in 1978 – preferring to work for TV productions. In 2002, her brother Maximilian Schell made a portrait of her in his documentary «Mein Schwester Maria».