Maria Schell (Actress): 1950s International Star, Superman Actress

Maria Schell (actress): Shining presence in international productions of the 1950s.

Maria Schell (actress): Award-winning international star of the 1950s worked with Clément and Visconti; Vond-Ah in Superman

Maria Schell, a radiant presence in European and American movies of the 1950s and early 1960s, died at age 79 on April 26 in the alpine Austrian town of Preitenegg, in the southern province of Carinthia. Reportedly a near-recluse, she had been in ill health for some time.

During her peak years, Schell worked with some of cinema’s biggest names both in front and behind the camera: Directors René Clément, Luchino Visconti, Delmer Daves, Anthony Mann, Richard Brooks; actors Marcello Mastroianni, Jean Marais, Gary Cooper, Glenn Ford, Yul Brynner, O.W. Fischer.

More recently, moviegoers got to see Maria Schell in a brief but memorable role as Krypton Council Member Vond-Ah in Richard Donner’s 1978 blockbuster Superman – undoubtedly the most commercially successful movie in which she appeared.

Also of note, her younger brother was actor-director Maximilian Schell (Best Actor Academy Award winner for Judgment at Nuremberg, 1961). Both were featured in Ronald Neame’s 1974 thriller The Odessa File, though they had no scenes together.

Movies

Often cast as a sweet and innocent Mädchen (and variations thereof), Maria Schell (born Maria Margarethe Anna Schell in Vienna on Jan. 15, 1926) made her movie debut in Sigfrit Steiner’s 1942 Swiss drama Steibruch, starring popular local actor Heinrich Gretler. (Schell’s family had relocated to Switzerland following the Anschluss in 1938.)

Her big-screen career, however, would truly be launched only in the postwar years, with supporting roles in German-language releases like Karl Hartl’s The Angel with the Trumpet (she would be also featured in the 1950 British remake) and Gustav Ucicky’s After the Storm.

By the early 1950s, Schell was landing major roles in Austria, Germany, and elsewhere, notably as one of the two wives of late-19th-century movie camera pioneer William Friese-Greene (played by Robert Donat) in John Boulting’s all-star 1951 biopic The Magic Box.

Cannes & Venice awards

A series of prominent productions would follow, among them:

• Helmut Käutner’s World War II drama The Last Bridge / Die letzte Brücke (1954), co-starring Bernhard Wicki. For her portrayal of a dedicated doctor, Schell was singled out with a Special Mention for Acting at the Cannes Film Festival (back then Cannes had no annual acting honors) and was shortlisted for the German Film Awards.
• René Clément’s Gervaise (1956), cast as a hardworking laundress surrounded by drunks in this Oscar-nominated adaptation of Émile Zola’s L’assommoir (“The Booze Shop”). Her performance earned her the Best Actress Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival and a British Academy Award nomination in the Best Foreign Actress category.
• Luchino Visconti’s wistful romantic drama White Nights / Le notti bianche (1957), from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s short story. Schell played a sweet innocent in love with Jean Marais, while loved by Marcello Mastroianni.
• Richard Brooks’ “prestige” – but messy – adaptation of another Dostoevsky work, The Brothers Karamazov (1958), with Schell cast as Grushenka opposite Yul Brynner’s Dmitri Karamazov.
• Delmer Daves’ beautifully shot romantic Western The Hanging Tree (1959), in which Schell gives a first-rate performance as a young Swiss immigrant who falls in love with Gary Cooper’s doctor/gunslinger.

More Maria Schell movies

Maria Schell’s big-screen career began winding down in the early 1960s. Notable titles during that period include:

• Anthony Mann’s sprawling Western Cimarron (1960), as Oklahoma cowboy/lawyer/etc. Glenn Ford’s wife (in the role played by Irene Dunne in the 1931 Academy Award-winning original).
• Guy Green’s British-made The Mark (1961), as the romantic interest of a convicted child molester (played by Oscar nominee Stuart Whitman), now facing another accusation.
• Géza von Radványi’s accomplished family drama Das Riesenrad (“The Ferris Wheel,” 1961), with frequent costar* O.W. Fischer (with whom Schell was romantically linked at one point).

* Other Maria Schell-O.W. Fischer collaborations include Harald Braun’s As Long as You’re Near Me / Solange Du da bist (1953), Josef von Báky’s Tagebuch einer Verliebten (“The Diary of a Woman in Love,” 1953), and von Báky’s Der träumende Mund (“The Dreamy Mouth,” 1953).

My Sister Maria

All but unrecognizable, Maria Schell was last seen on the big screen in Maximilian Schell’s 2002 documentary My Sister Maria / Meine Schwester Maria, which failed to receive the acclaim that had greeted Schell’s Oscar-nominated 1984 documentary Marlene (about another German-speaking movie legend, Marlene Dietrich†).

At the time of his sister’s death, Schell, in Los Angeles to direct the opera Der Rosenkavalier, said in a statement: “Towards the end of her life, she suffered silently and I never heard her complain. I admire her for that. Her death might have been for her a salvation. But not for me. She is irreplaceable.”

† Maria Schell and Marlene Dietrich are both featured – without sharing the screen – in actor-turned-director David Hemmings’ 1978 (sort of) “cult classic” Just a Gigolo, starring David Bowie and Sydne Rome, and with Hemmings, Kim Novak, and Curd Jürgens in supporting roles.

Endnotes

Maximilian Schell statement about Maria Schell via the latter’s obit posted in The Criterion Forum. The original source is unclear.

See also: French film producer René Cleitman’s notable credits include Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominees Cyrano de Bergerac and Close to Eden.

See also: Things to Come and All Things Great and Small actress Margaretta Scott has died at age 93.

“Maria Schell (Actress): 1950s International Star, Superman Actress” last updated in April 2024.