Biography
Maria Schell (born Maria Margarethe Anna Schell) was an Austrian-Swiss actress. She was born in Vienna on 15 January 1926 and died in Preitenegg, Carinthia, on 26 April 2005.
She trained at the School of Theatrical Arts in Zurich and began her career in Swiss and German films in the 1940s. Schell became a leading star of German cinema in the 1950s, appearing in The Last Bridge (1954), for which she won the Cannes Best Actress Award, and Gervaise (1956), for which she received the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival.
Her later credits include White Nights (1957), The Hanging Tree (1959), Cimarron (1960), The Odessa File (1974), Voyage of the Damned (1976), Superman (1978) as Vond-Ah, and a guest role in Kojak (1976). She was the older sister of actor Maximilian Schell and also performed on stage in Zurich, Vienna, Berlin and at the Salzburg Festival.
