French actress Maria Schneider, who ultimately came to disdain her most famous role as Marlon Brando’s young and sexy lover in Last Tango In Paris, has died this morning after a long illness. She was 58. According to news reports, French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterand called Schneider “a great artist”. The daughter of French actor Daniel Gelin and a Parisian bookshop owner, Schneider was only 19 when she was cast opposite the 48-year-old Brando in 1972′s Last Tango In Paris which caused controversy for its full-body sexual content. Afterwards, the actress made no secret of her dislike for having been “manipulated” into making the movie and vowed not to appear in a nude scene ever again. Although Schneider appeared opposite Jack Nicholson in The Passenger in 1975, and in Jane Eyre in 1996, her subsequent acting career consisted mostly of low-budget European films.

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