Sarah Biasini: She is still concerned with the death of Mama Romy Schneider to this day

Sarah Biasini, the daughter of the great Romy Schneider, talks about her difficult life after her mother’s death. Only her own daughter Anna gave her deep joy.

It was a moment of pure happiness for Sarah Biasini, 44: the dream in which her mother Romy and her fatally injured brother David are still living. But that wonderful feeling was quickly gone. The past cannot be changed. “Fortunately, the first second after waking up seemed like forever,” she writes in her book “Die Schönheit des Himmels”, which has just been published in German, in which she tells the eventful story of her life.

Sarah Biasini: The family tragedies bother her to this day

She is still concerned about the loss of her mother and brother to this day. She has been trying to come to terms with the family tragedies in therapy sessions for many years. The pain stayed anyway. She experienced the death of her mother Romy Schneider at the age of five – and above all the desperation of the people around her. With the words “Mama went to be with David”, her father tried to make the girl understand the incomprehensible.

Their own daughter is their greatest happiness

Sarah ponders for a long time whether her mom has left her, the absolute dream child, voluntarily. “Nobody around me believes it. I couldn’t blame her. I know what she went through. I know the tiredness, the pain, the sadness.”

She was helped by the birth of her now three-year-old daughter Anna, who is as similar to Romy Schneider as she is. Before that, Sarah Biasini had hoped for ten years in vain for offspring. Two fertility treatments failed. At 39, when she had already given up, it worked naturally. Her doctor was not pleased, so Sarah: He actually wanted to give her the longed-for baby by medical means. You can see her smiling as she writes that.

Sarah Biasini at the Romy Schneider exhibition in Cannes 2012.

© Didier Baverel / Getty Images

Your book is peppered with fine irony and subtle humor. And their special view of things. Sarah Biasini firmly believes that her mother has granted her greatest wish from beyond the grave. She describes pregnancy as “magical”. Her greatest fear: that something could happen to her, as it once did to her mother. And then her own daughter would feel the same sadness.

A superstar thanks "Sissi": The role of Empress Elisabeth of Austria made the young Romy Schneider famous in Germany.  She didn't particularly like the soulful trilogy herself.

A superstar thanks to “Sissi”: The role of Empress Elisabeth of Austria made the young Romy Schneider famous in Germany. She didn’t particularly like the soulful trilogy herself.

© Allstar / imago images

Sarah Biasini is a successful actress in France

Sarah was lovingly cared for by her father Daniel Biasini, once Romy Schneider’s private secretary. The heroine role in Sarah’s life was played by her French grandma Monique, who she practically raised. She had little contact with her other grandmother, film star Magda Schneider, and German has remained foreign to her to this day. Probably also because Romy never spoke to her in that language. “She chose France.”

Sarah Biasini is successful there as an actress, a star. Certainly also because of her resemblance to “Maman”, about which Sarah, who is rather reserved with her temperament, is often addressed – even in the delivery room, a few minutes before Anna was born. Fortunately, a morphine injection and the epidural anesthesia, which is common in France, would have made them gentle.

Her daughter’s father is theater director Gilles Lefeuvre, whom she met at a party in 2007. He immediately falls in love with her, keeps calling her. Sarah, the cautious, checks her feelings for a few years before she says “yes”. Gilles Lefeuvre brings his young son into the marriage, a brother for Anna. A similar constellation as in Sarah Biasini’s childhood: She has a brother from Romy Schneider’s first marriage to the actor Harry Meyen, who took his own life after the divorce. Another tragedy.

Romy Schneider never recovers from this stroke of fate

“The worst that we have experienced”, however, is what Sarah calls the misfortune that cost her brother David his life in 1981 when he was only 14 years old. When climbing over a fence, he slips so unhappily on a metal spike that he dies as a result of the injury. Romy Schneider never recovers from this stroke of fate. Less than a year later, she too dies – at the age of just 43. Sarah recalls that David was the family’s sunshine. And he was so fond of his surrogate father Daniel Biasini that he insisted on using his last name after Romy Schneider’s wedding. She is also close to her father. Incidentally, to this day he has not been able to watch a film with Romy – too painful.

Romy Schneider's wedding in 1975 to Daniel Biasini, who was eleven years his junior.  In 1981, Romy filed for divorce.

Romy Schneider’s wedding in 1975 to Daniel Biasini, who was eleven years his junior. In 1981, Romy filed for divorce.

© Picture Alliance

I’ve learned to come to terms with it. At least it doesn’t make me the same as my mother.

One heirloom on his part that she likes less is the pronounced jawline. Sarah Biasini: “I’ve learned to come to terms with it. At least it doesn’t make me identical with my mother.” She doesn’t think she is as pretty as Romy. “My face is strange, sometimes I find it original, unique. Sometimes I find it really ugly.” Although she often gets compliments on how she looks, that’s a mortgage she carries around with her.

Just like their fears, their constant companions. Not so long ago a friend gave her a sentence that she tried to take to heart: “You don’t need to be afraid anymore, life has already taught you everything. You are practically vaccinated.” Now all she has to do is believe in it.

Gala

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