'Last Tango in Paris' Actress Maria Schneider Dead at 58

Late actress Maria Schneider (Reuters)

Maria Schneider, the French actress who was Marlon Brando's young co-star in the steamy 1972 film "Last Tango in Paris," has died, her talent agency said. She was 58.

A representative of the Act 1 agency said Schneider died in Paris on Thursday "following a long illness," but declined to provide details.

Schneider was 19 when she starred opposite Marlon Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci's racy "Last Tango in Paris." In it, she played a young Parisian woman who takes up with a middle-aged American businessman, played by Brando.

Throughout her career, Schneider appeared in more than two dozen films, most of them French. The last movie she appeared in, "The Key," by director Guillaume Nicloux, came out in 2007.

The Act 1 representative said she was not aware of funeral plans. She asked not to be named in accordance with her agency's policy.