Magda Schneider (17 May 1909 – 30 July 1996) was a German actress and singer; she was the mother of the actress Romy Schneider.

Biography

Magdalena Schneider was born in Augsburg, Bavaria. After training as a stenographer, she studied singing at the Augsburg Academy and ballet at the local theater. She made her stage debut at the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich. Schneider drew the attention of Ernst Marischka who called her to the Theater an der Wien in Vienna, and in 1930 gave Schneider her first film role.

In 1937, Schneider married the Austrian actor Wolf Albach-Retty, with whom she had two children: Rosemarie Magdalena, called Romy, and Wolfgang Dieter, later a surgeon, born in 1940. During World War II, Schneider lived in the Bavarian Alps near Hitler's retreat in the Obersalzberg above Berchtesgaden. Schneider was a guest of Hitler's, who declared that she was his favorite actress.

She divorced Albach-Retty in 1945 and married the Cologne restaurant owner Hans Herbert Blatzheim in 1953.

The same year, she appeared in the film Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht (When the White Lilacs Bloom Again), which was also the film debut of her daughter Romy Schneider. She appeared again with her daughter in the films of the Sissi trilogy, based on the life of Elisabeth of Bavaria, with Romy Schneider starring in the title role and Magda Schneider playing the role of her mother, Princess Ludovika of Bavaria, and in the 1958 film Die Halbzarte (Eva). Magda Schneider's role in the 1933 film Liebelei was also played by her daughter, Romy Schneider, in the 1958 film Christine.

Schneider died in 1996 in Berchtesgaden, Bavaria.

Selected filmography

• Das Lied einer Nacht (Tell Me Tonight) (1932)
• Liebelei (1933)
• Forget Me Not (1935)
• The Girl at the Reception (1940)
• Wenn der weiße Flieder wieder blüht (When the White Lilacs Bloom Again) (1953)
• Mädchenjahre einer Königin (1953)
• Die Deutschmeister (1955)
• Sissi (1955)
• Sissi – die junge Kaiserin (Sissi – The Young Empress) (1956)
• Robinson soll nicht sterben (The Girl and the Legend) (1957)
• Sissi – Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin (Sissi – Fateful Years of an Empress) (1957)
• Das Dreimäderlhaus (1958)
• Die Halbzarte (Eva) (1958)