Romy Schneider (German: [ˈʁoː.mi ˈʃnaɪ̯.dɐ] (listen); born Rosemarie Magdalena Albach; 23 September 1938 – 29 May 1982) was a German-French actress. She began 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, and later reprised the role in a more mature version in Luchino Visconti's Ludwig (1973). 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, six months after the Anschluss of Austria into Nazi Germany, to actors Magda Schneider and Wolf Albach-Retty. Her paternal grandmother, Rosa Albach-Retty, was also an actress. Schneider's mother was German while her father was Austrian.
Four weeks after Romy's birth, the parents brought her to Schönau am Königssee in Germany where she and later her brother Wolf-Dieter (born 1941) grew up with their grandparents Franz Xaver and Maria Schneider on the country estate Mariengrund. In her first year, Romy was cared for by a governess. Her parents were very rarely present due to their acting engagements. In 1943, they separated and were divorced in 1945.

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