Holly Millea's "Maria Schneider: The Long Strange Trip After Last Tango"

Premiere? At last, however, an article worth perusing: Holly Millea's "Maria Schneider: The Long Strange Trip After  Last Tango," in  Premiere's "Women in Hollywood 2000" special issue. For those curious about what happened to that pouty-faced baby Bardot with the Mary Pickford curls, the story of Schneider's slide is all here: hard drugs and obsessive, round-the-globe partying; greasy men pressuring this always-a-lesbian to be their bisexual toy; press and public making jest of her forever after the infamous Land-o'-Lakes-style butt fuck of  Last Tango in Paris (which is screening this Monday, January 10, at the Coolidge Corner).(which is screening this Monday, January 10, at the Coolidge Corner).

"People thought I was the girl in the film," Schneider, now 47, tells her interviewer. "It hurts my feelings. The jokes, the giggles. On the street, in restaurants: `Do you want some butter on your potatoes?' " What she remembers about the  Last Tango shooting is that Brando was blithely unprepared (post-Method?) for his part. "Laziness," Schneider describes it. "So when the close-up was on him, I had the script written all over my body. He was reading me!"shooting is that Brando was blithely unprepared (post-Method?) for his part. "Laziness," Schneider describes it. "So when the close-up was on him, I had the script written all over my body. He was reading me!"

Schneider also gives credence to a long-circulated rumor about filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci's sexuality. "He [Bertolucci] was in love with Marlon. The part was written for a boy! That's why the butter, the sodomization, the gag. . . . And they didn't dare do it with a boy."

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