NASTASSJA KINSKI Biography - Actors and Actresses

 
 

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NASTASSJA KINSKI

Name: Nastassja Kinski                                                                     
Birth name: Nastassja Aglaia Nakszyński                                                   
Born: 24 January 1961 Berlin, Germany                                                     
                                                                                           
Nastassja Kinski (born Nastassja Aglaia Nakszyński, January 24, 1961) is a               
prolific German actress, having appeared in more than 60 movies. Her starring             
roles include her Golden Globe Award-winning portrayal of 'Tess Durbeyfield' in           
Roman Polanski's film Tess and her parts in Wim Wenders' films The Wrong Move,             
Paris, Texas, and Faraway, So Close!. During the late 1970s and throughout the             
1980s Nastassja Kinski was widely regarded as an international sex symbol.                 
                                                                                           
Born in Berlin, Kinski is the daughter of the late German actor Klaus Kinski               
from his marriage to actress Ruth Brigitte Tocki. Her parents divorced in 1968.           
Kinski rarely saw her father after the age of 10. Kinski and her mother                   
struggled financially. Eventually they ended up living in a commune in Munich.             
                                                                                           
Kinski's foray into the spotlight began in her native Germany where she started           
out as a model. At the age of 13, the German New Wave actress Lisa Kreuzer                 
placed her in the role of the dumb Mignon in Wim Wenders' film The Wrong Move.             
In her mid-teens she starred in the British Hammer Film Productions' horror film           
To the Devil a Daughter (1976). Kinski has gained a certain notoriety through             
her nude appearances in these films whilst still a minor. This is linked to               
another controversy as to the exact year of her birth, which was apparently               
reported to the American authorities as 1959, though German records show that             
she was actually born in 1961. She has since stated that as a child she felt               
exploited by the industry and told a journalist from W Magazine, "If I had had             
somebody to protect me or if I had felt more secure about myself, I would not             
have accepted certain things. Nudity things. And inside it was just tearing me             
apart".                                                                                   
                                                                                           
At 15 Kinski began a romantic relationship with director Roman Polanski, 28               
years her senior. Polanski urged her to study acting with Lee Strasberg in the U.S.A.     
and went on to cast her in his film, Tess (1979). Shortly after this on-screen             
success, photographer Richard Avedon photographed Kinski with a serpent coiled             
around her naked body (1981).                                                             
                                                                                           
In 1982 Kinski appeared as "Leila" the 'circus girl' in the Francis Ford Coppola/Dean     
Tavoularis collaboration One from the Heart which bankrupted Coppola's American           
Zoetrope studio. In 1982 she made the hit movie Cat People, and then the films             
Unfaithfully Yours, and The Hotel New Hampshire, which performed poorly at the             
box office and with critics. Critics praised her performance in Paris, Texas,             
and the film won awards at Cannes, but in the U.S the film was not widely                 
released. Kinski then split her time between Europe and the United States,                 
making Moon in the Gutter (1983), Harem (1985) and Torrents of Spring (1989) in           
the former, and Exposed (1983), Maria's Lovers (1984) and Revolution (1985) in             
the latter. Kinski's luck turned in the 1990s when she appeared in films such as           
Terminal Velocity opposite Charlie Sheen and Mike Figgis' critically acclaimed             
One Night Stand.                                                                           
                                                                                           
In the mid-1980s Kinski met Egyptian film maker Ibrahim Moussa. They married on           
September 10, 1984. Together they raised Aljosha (born June 29, 1984), whose               
biological father is Vincent Spano and daughter Sonja Leila, now a model, who             
was born on March 2, 1986. The marriage was formally dissolved by divorce in               
1992. From 1991 until 1997 Kinski lived with music impresario Quincy Jones. On             
February 9, 1993 their daughter Kenya Julia Miambi Sara was born.                         
                                                                                           
Appearances of note have included Martin Donovan's Somebody Is Waiting (1996),             
Neil LaBute's Your Friends & Neighbours (1998), John Landis' Susan's Plan (1998),         
Chris Menges' The Lost Son (1999), Michael Winterbottom's The Claim (2000), and           
David Lynch's Inland Empire (2006).                                                       
                                                                                           
Kinski speaks German, English, French, Italian and Russian fluently.