Maria Schneider was 19 when she went up against Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris. At an age when most are trying to figure out what class to take, she handled herself masterfully against one of the greatest actors of his generation. Even though the film’s production was traumatizing for both Schneider and Brando (that’s putting it lightly and then sugar coating it), the positive praise of the film has kept it in the public’s eye. While Schneider continued to act throughout the rest of her life (mostly in French films) her early life was beset with drug problems. However, that turned around in the early eighties and she had been clean ever since. At 58, she passed away after a “suffering a long illness.”
Source: The Hollywood Reporter