West-German collectors card by Bravo.
French postcard by Ebullitions, no. 502.
Spanish postcard in the Yo amo al cine series by Rovensa S.A. Photo: Lauren Films. Nastassja Kinski in The Hotel New Hampshire (Tony Richardson, 1984).
British postcard by Santoro Graphics, London, no. C200. Photo: 20th Century Fox. Publicity still for Unfaithfully Yours (Howard Zieff, 1984).
French postcard by Editions F. Nugeron, Paris, no. 1. Photo: Collection de l'ecole de Cinéma Camiris. Nastassja Kinski in Harem (Arthur Joffé, 1985).
Petersen and Polanski
Nastassja Kinski was born as Nastassja Aglaia Nakszyński in Berlin in 1961 (some sources say 1964). She is the daughter of the German actor Klaus Kinski from his marriage to actress Ruth Brigitte Tocki. She is a half-sister to actress Pola Kinski and actor Nikolai Kinski. Her parents divorced in 1968 and Kinski rarely saw her father after the age of 10.
She and her mother struggled financially and eventually lived in a commune in Munich. Her career began in Germany as a model. The actress Lisa Kreuzer placed her in the role of the dumb Mignon in Wim Wenders' film Falsche Bewegung/The Wrong Move (1975) starring Rüdiger Vogler and Hanna Schygulla.
In Great Britain, she was featured in the horror film To the Devil a Daughter (Peter Sykes, 1976), starring Christopher Lee and produced by Hammer Film. That year she had her first major role in an episode of the popular German TV crime show Tatort. This episode, Reifezeugnis/For Your Love Only (1977), had a feature film length and was directed by Wolfgang Petersen at the beginning of his career.
Years later, after Kinski had become an international star, the TV film was released theatrically in the U.S. In 1976, Kinski was photographed for French Vogue by director Roman Polanski, and the two started a romantic relationship. She was 15 years old at the time and he was 43. In the cinema Kinski also had a May-December romance in Così come sei/Stay As You Are (Alberto Lattuada, 1978) with Marcello Mastroianni.
Polanski urged Kinski to study acting with Lee Strasberg and cast her in the lead part of his film Tess (Roman Polanski, 1979), based on the classic novel by Thomas Hardy. The film won three Oscars and Kinski won the Golden Globe for best newcomer. However, Derek Armstrong writes at AllMovie: “The quiet, contemplative nature of the film is echoed, although not so skilfully, in the lead performance of Nastassja Kinski. Seemingly cast more for her soulful eyes (and Polanski's budding relationship with her) than her acting, Kinski gives a tentative, one-note performance that is nearly inaudible. Still, it served to deliver her a variety of other projects and bring her limited stardom.”
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Photo: Roman Polanski and Nastassia Kinski at the set of Tess (Roman Polanski, 1979).
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin. Nastassja Kinski and Peter Firth in Tess (Roman Polanski, 1979).
French postcard by Humour a la carte, Paris, no. ST-187. Nastassja Kinski in Tess (Roman Polanski, 1979).
British postcard, no. 102. Photo: Nastassja Kinski in Tess (Roman Polanski, 1979).
Belgian Postcard by Joepie / Raider / Bounty. Photo: publicity still for Tess (Roman Polanski, 1979).
Coppola and Wenders
In 1981, director Francis Ford Coppola brought Nastassja Kinski to the U.S.A. to act for his new Zoetrope Studios. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “Kinski became the dream of male college undergraduates everywhere by posing for a Richard Avedon poster wearing nothing but a large, live python which spiralled around her body.“
The first Zoetrope production, One From the Heart (Francis Ford Coppola), starring Frederic Forrest, Teri Garr and Kinski, failed at the box office and was a major loss for Coppola's new studio. In 1982, she also appeared in the erotic horror film Cat People (Paul Schrader, 1982), which also was not successful commercially.
Kinski then split her time between Europe and the United States. In France she filmed La lune dans le caniveau/Moon in the Gutter (Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1983) with Gérard Depardieu. In Germany she played Clara Wieck in the biography Frühlingssinfonie/Spring Symphony (Peter Schamoni, 1983) opposite Herbert Grönemeyer as composer Robert Schumann. In Italy she co-starred with Rutger Hauer in In una notte di chiaro di luna/On a Moonlit Night (Lina Wertmüller, 1989).
And in the U.S. she co-starred with Rudolph Nureyev in Exposed (James Toback, 1983), with Rob Lowe and Jodie Foster in The Hotel New Hampshire (Tony Richardson, 1984), with John Savage in Maria's Lovers (Andrey Konchalovskiy, 1984) and with Al Pacino in Revolution (Al Pacino, 1985).
Her most acclaimed film was Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984) in which she played the estranged wife of Harry Dean Stanton. Mark Deming at AllMovie: “Paris, Texas may be the finest of Wim Wenders' 'road movies', a deliberately paced but deeply moving story of a man at the end of his emotional rope who is given an unexpected chance to heal both his scars and those he has inflicted on others. Harry Dean Stanton gives perhaps his finest performance - few actors could pull off a scene like the long monologue he shares with Kinski near the film's conclusion”.
The film won a César and also three awards in Cannes, and was nominated however, the film was not widely released in the United States, for the Oscar. In the mid-1980s, Kinski met Egyptian filmmaker Ibrahim Moussa. They married in 1984 and they have two children together, son Aljosha (1984) and daughter Sonja Kinski (1986).
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.
Romanian postcard by Casa Filmului Acin.
British postcard in the Photographs series, no. 101. Photo: Richard Avedon.
British postcard by Box Office, no. BOPC 3037. Photo: Richard Avedon. Caption: Nastassja Kinski by Richard Avedon, May 27th, 1982.
Canadian postcard by Canadian Postcard, no. A-72.
Italian postcard by Playboy edizione italiana, no. 2, 1982. Photo: Angelo Frontoni.
LaBute and Winterbottom
Nastassja Kinski's luck in Hollywood turned in the 1990s when she appeared opposite Charlie Sheen in the action comedy Terminal Velocity (Deran Serafian, 1994). After her marriage with Moussa had been dissolved, Kinski lived with musician Quincy Jones till 1995. In 1993, their daughter, Kenya Julia Miambi Sarah Jones, was born.
In the cinema, Kinski would tackle serious subject matter in the AIDS drama One Night Stand (Mike Figgis, 1997) with Wesley Snipes, The Lost Son (Chris Menges, 1999), a crime drama revolving around a network of paedophiles, and the Serbian war drama Savior (Predrag Antonijevic, 1998) with Dennis Quaid.
Her other film appearances include In weiter Ferne, so nah!/Faraway, So Close (Wim Wenders, 1993) with Bruno Ganz, the comedy of manners Your Friends & Neighbors (Neil LaBute, 1998) with Aaron Eckhardt, and The Claim (Michael Winterbottom, 2000), loosely based on Thomas Hardy's novel 'Mayor of Casterbridge'.
The story, filmed in sub-zero Calgary, Canada, tells about a man (Peter Mullan) who sells his wife (Kinski) and daughter (Sarah Polley) for a gold-mining claim. Jason Clark at AllMovie: “Winterbottom subtly draws viewers into this haunting tale of family regained and the power of greed by letting them take in the details through small gestures.” In the following years, Kinski played mainly in B-films and TV movies.
Interesting were the French-Canadian Mini-Series Les liaisons dangereuses/Dangerous Liaisons (Josée Dayan, 2003) with Catherine Deneuve and Rupert Everett, and the dark mystery Inland Empire (David Lynch, 2006 with Laura Dern and Jeremy Irons. She co-starred with Julian Sands in Il turno di notte lo fanno le stele/The Nightshift Belongs to the Stars (2012), directed by Edoardo Ponti, son of producer Carlo Ponti and Sophia Loren.
After a long interval, Nastassja Kinski was seen on TV in the French crime series Police de Caractères/Typeface (2022). Her daughter with producer Ibrahim Moussa, Sonja Kinski (1986), is a model and actress, and her daughter by Quincy Jones, Kenya Kinski-Jones (1993) is also a model.
French postcard in the Collection Magie Noire by Editions Hazan, Paris, no. 6314. Nastassja Kinski in Cat People (Paul Schrader, 1982).
Vintage postcard by Palm Pictures, no. C 32. Publicity still for Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984).
British postcard by World Postcards Inc., no. X 57, 1988. Photo: publicity still for Maria’s Lovers (Andrey Konchalovskiy, 1984).
French postcard by Humour a la carte, Paris, no. 3708.
German autograph card.
French postcard by Editions La Malibran, Paris, no. MC 4. Photo: Georges Pierre. Nastassja Kinski in Harem (Arthur Joffé, 1985).
Belgian postcard in the series 'De 50 mooiste vrouwen van de eeuw!' by Pmagazine, no. 48. Photo: Davis Factor / Outline.
Scene from Tess (1979). Source: gigispanudamilanu (YouTube).
Trailer Paris, Texas (1984). Source: Danios12345 (YouTube).
Trailer The Claim (2000). Source: Danios12345 (YouTube).
Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Derek Armstrong (AllMovie), Jason Clark (AllMovie), Mark Deming (AllMovie), Wikipedia and IMDb.
2 comments:
Such an icon of her generation. I still remember the famous poster with the snake.
Yeah, every boy had a crush on her then.
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