
My Cousin Maria Schneider
A Memoir
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $11.24
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Molly Ringwald
About this listen
“A beautiful eulogy and a much-needed corrective” (The New York Times)—a love letter to Maria Schneider, the 1970s movie starlet who catapulted to fame in the controversial film Last Tango in Paris—only to live the rest of her life plagued by scandal, as told from the perspective of her adoring younger cousin.
The late French actress Maria Schneider is perhaps best known for playing Jeanne in the provocative film Last Tango in Paris, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci and released to international shock and acclaim in 1972. It was Maria’s first major role, alongside film legend Marlon Brando, when she was barely eighteen years old. The experience would haunt her for the rest of her life, traumatizing her and sparking a tabloid firestorm that only ceased when she began to retreat from the public eye nearly two decades later.
To Maria’s much younger cousin, Vanessa Schneider, Maria was a towering figure of another kind—a beautiful and fearsome fixture in Vanessa’s childhood, a rising star turned pariah whose career and struggles with addiction won the family shame and pride in equal measure. Here, Vanessa recounts the challenges of their overlapping youths and fraught adulthood and reveals both the tragedy and inevitability of Maria’s path in a family plagued by mental illness and in a society rife with misogyny.
Unsentimental and moving, My Cousin Maria Schneider is a love letter to a talented artist and the cousin who admired her, and a powerful story of exploitation and how its lingering effects can reverberate through a lifetime.
©2023 Vanessa Schneider and Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle. All rights reserved. English language translation copyright © 2023 by Molly Ringwald. Originally published in France in 2018 by Éditions Grasset & Fasquelle as Tu t’appelais Maria Schneider (P)2023 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Everything Nothing Someone
- A Memoir
- By: Alice Carrière
- Narrated by: Alice Carrière
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice Carrière tells the story of her unconventional upbringing in Greenwich Village as the daughter of a remote mother, the renowned artist Jennifer Bartlett, and a charismatic father, European actor Mathieu Carrière. From an early age, Alice is forced to navigate her mother’s recovered memories of ritualized sexual abuse, which she turns into art, and her father’s confusing attentions—her childhood is spent in an adult’s world, with little-to-no boundaries or supervision.
-
-
This book is awful.
- By af_90 on 12-17-23
By: Alice Carrière
-
My Name Is Barbra
- By: Barbra Streisand
- Narrated by: Barbra Streisand
- Length: 48 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbra Streisand is by any account a living legend, a woman who in a career spanning six decades has excelled in every area of entertainment. She is among the handful of EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) and has one of the greatest and most recognizable voices in the history of popular music. She has been nominated for a Grammy 46 times, and with Yentl she became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major motion picture. In My Name Is Barbra, she tells her own story about her life and extraordinary career.
-
-
BARBRA IS LIKE BUTTAH!
- By JoeGato57 on 11-08-23
By: Barbra Streisand
-
Honey, Baby, Mine
- A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding)
- By: Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Reese Witherspoon - foreword
- Narrated by: Laura Dern, Diane Ladd
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Laura Dern and Diane Ladd always had a close relationship, but the stakes were raised when Diane developed a sudden life-threatening illness. Diane’s doctor prescribed long walks to build back her lung capacity. The exertion was challenging, and Laura soon learned the best way to distract her mom was to get her talking and telling stories. Their conversations along the way began to break down the traditional barriers between mothers and daughters.
-
-
I would give 10 stars if I could!!!
- By Literature Lover on 04-27-23
By: Laura Dern, and others
-
Every Man for Himself and God Against All
- A Memoir
- By: Werner Herzog, Michael Hofmann - translator
- Narrated by: Werner Herzog
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Werner Herzog was born in September 1942 in Munich, Germany, at a turning point in the Second World War. Soon Germany would be defeated and a new world would have to be made out the rubble and horrors of the war. Fleeing the Allied bombing raids, Herzog’s mother took him and his older brother to a remote, rustic part of Bavaria where he would spend much of his childhood hungry, without running water, in deep poverty. It was there, as the new postwar order was emerging, that one of the most visionary filmmakers of the next seven decades was formed.
-
-
Absolutely incredible, memoir of the year
- By Susie Bright on 10-16-23
By: Werner Herzog, and others
-
The Sullivanians
- Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune
- By: Alexander Stille
- Narrated by: Jamie Renell
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the middle of the Ozzie and Harriet 1950s, the birth control pill became available and a maverick psychoanalytic institute, the Sullivan Institute for Research in Psychoanalysis, opened its doors in New York City. Its founders wanted to start a revolution, one grounded in ideals of creative expression, sexual liberation, and freedom from societal norms, and the revolution needed to begin at home.
-
-
As a former member…
- By Lisa Cohen on 07-10-23
By: Alexander Stille
-
Monsters
- A Fan's Dilemma
- By: Claire Dederer
- Narrated by: Claire Dederer
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how we can separate artists from their art.
-
-
Adresses my many questions
- By Syd Young on 11-01-23
By: Claire Dederer
-
Everything Nothing Someone
- A Memoir
- By: Alice Carrière
- Narrated by: Alice Carrière
- Length: 10 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alice Carrière tells the story of her unconventional upbringing in Greenwich Village as the daughter of a remote mother, the renowned artist Jennifer Bartlett, and a charismatic father, European actor Mathieu Carrière. From an early age, Alice is forced to navigate her mother’s recovered memories of ritualized sexual abuse, which she turns into art, and her father’s confusing attentions—her childhood is spent in an adult’s world, with little-to-no boundaries or supervision.
-
-
This book is awful.
- By af_90 on 12-17-23
By: Alice Carrière
-
My Name Is Barbra
- By: Barbra Streisand
- Narrated by: Barbra Streisand
- Length: 48 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barbra Streisand is by any account a living legend, a woman who in a career spanning six decades has excelled in every area of entertainment. She is among the handful of EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) and has one of the greatest and most recognizable voices in the history of popular music. She has been nominated for a Grammy 46 times, and with Yentl she became the first woman to write, produce, direct, and star in a major motion picture. In My Name Is Barbra, she tells her own story about her life and extraordinary career.
-
-
BARBRA IS LIKE BUTTAH!
- By JoeGato57 on 11-08-23
By: Barbra Streisand
-
Honey, Baby, Mine
- A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding)
- By: Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Reese Witherspoon - foreword
- Narrated by: Laura Dern, Diane Ladd
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Laura Dern and Diane Ladd always had a close relationship, but the stakes were raised when Diane developed a sudden life-threatening illness. Diane’s doctor prescribed long walks to build back her lung capacity. The exertion was challenging, and Laura soon learned the best way to distract her mom was to get her talking and telling stories. Their conversations along the way began to break down the traditional barriers between mothers and daughters.
-
-
I would give 10 stars if I could!!!
- By Literature Lover on 04-27-23
By: Laura Dern, and others
-
Every Man for Himself and God Against All
- A Memoir
- By: Werner Herzog, Michael Hofmann - translator
- Narrated by: Werner Herzog
- Length: 13 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Werner Herzog was born in September 1942 in Munich, Germany, at a turning point in the Second World War. Soon Germany would be defeated and a new world would have to be made out the rubble and horrors of the war. Fleeing the Allied bombing raids, Herzog’s mother took him and his older brother to a remote, rustic part of Bavaria where he would spend much of his childhood hungry, without running water, in deep poverty. It was there, as the new postwar order was emerging, that one of the most visionary filmmakers of the next seven decades was formed.
-
-
Absolutely incredible, memoir of the year
- By Susie Bright on 10-16-23
By: Werner Herzog, and others
-
The Sullivanians
- Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune
- By: Alexander Stille
- Narrated by: Jamie Renell
- Length: 14 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the middle of the Ozzie and Harriet 1950s, the birth control pill became available and a maverick psychoanalytic institute, the Sullivan Institute for Research in Psychoanalysis, opened its doors in New York City. Its founders wanted to start a revolution, one grounded in ideals of creative expression, sexual liberation, and freedom from societal norms, and the revolution needed to begin at home.
-
-
As a former member…
- By Lisa Cohen on 07-10-23
By: Alexander Stille
-
Monsters
- A Fan's Dilemma
- By: Claire Dederer
- Narrated by: Claire Dederer
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how we can separate artists from their art.
-
-
Adresses my many questions
- By Syd Young on 11-01-23
By: Claire Dederer
-
Did I Ever Tell You This?
- By: Sam Neill
- Narrated by: Sam Neill
- Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this unexpected memoir, written in a creative burst of just a few months in 2022, Sam Neill tells the story of how he became one of the world’s most celebrated actors, who has worked with everyone from Meryl Streep to Isabel Adjani, from Jeff Goldblum to Sean Connery, from Steven Spielberg to Jane Campion.
-
-
A Kiwi Knight who kept me up for many nights
- By C. A. Cameron on 04-13-23
By: Sam Neill
-
The Story of Art Without Men
- By: Katy Hessel
- Narrated by: Katy Hessel
- Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? Did women even work as artists before the twentieth century? And what is the Baroque anyway? Guided by Katy Hessel, art historian and founder of @thegreatwomenartists, discover the glittering paintings by Sofonisba Anguissola of the Renaissance, the radical work of Harriet Powers in the nineteenth-century United States, and the artist who really invented the "readymade." Explore the Dutch Golden Age, the astonishing work of postwar artists in Latin America, and the women defining art in the 2020s.
-
-
Great book, no pdf?
- By Amazon Customer on 08-11-24
By: Katy Hessel
-
Doppelganger
- A Trip into the Mirror World
- By: Naomi Klein
- Narrated by: Naomi Klein
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if you woke up one morning and found you’d acquired another self—a double who was almost you and yet not you at all? What if that double shared many of your preoccupations but, in a twisted, upside-down way, furthered the very causes you’d devoted your life to fighting against? Not long ago, the celebrated activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein had just such an experience—she was confronted with a doppelganger whose views she found abhorrent but whose name and public persona were sufficiently similar to her own that many people got confused about who was who.
-
-
Elite Psychobabble
- By A Reviewer on 09-30-23
By: Naomi Klein
-
Tell Me Everything
- A Memoir
- By: Minka Kelly
- Narrated by: Minka Kelly
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Fans know her as the spoiled, rich cheerleader Lyla Garrity on Friday Night Lights or as the affluent, mysterious Samantha on the HBO megahit Euphoria. But as revealed for the first time in this book, Minka Kelly’s life has been anything but easy. Raised by a single mother who worked as a stripper and struggled with addiction, Minka spent years waking up in strange apartments as she and her mom bounced around the country, relying on friends and relatives to take them in. Now an established actress and philanthropist, Minka takes this next step in her career as a writer.
-
-
Had me until the white privileged and cis comments
- By Rachel Gilbert on 06-02-23
By: Minka Kelly
-
Day
- A Novel
- By: Michael Cunningham
- Narrated by: Julianne Moore
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
April 5, 2019: In a cozy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. Dan and Isabel, husband and wife, are slowly drifting apart—and both, it seems, are a little bit in love with Isabel’s younger brother, Robbie. Robbie, wayward soul of the family, who still lives in the attic loft; Robbie, who, trying to get over his most recent boyfriend, is living vicariously through a glamorous avatar online; Robbie, who now has to move out of the house—and whose departure threatens to break the family apart.
-
-
The writing is lovely.
- By D. W. Trimm on 12-01-23
-
Just as I Am
- A Memoir
- By: Cicely Tyson, Michelle Burford
- Narrated by: Cicely Tyson, Viola Davis, Robin Miles
- Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just as I Am is my truth. It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside. Here, I am indeed Cicely, the actress who has been blessed to grace the stage and screen for six decades. Yet I am also the church girl who once rarely spoke a word. I am the teenager who sought solace in the verses of the old hymn for which this book is named. I am a daughter and mother, a sister, and a friend. I am an observer of human nature and the dreamer of audacious dreams.
-
-
A Legend and National Treasure
- By Mz Fabulous on 01-29-21
By: Cicely Tyson, and others
-
Easy Beauty
- By: Chloé Cooper Jones
- Narrated by: Chloé Cooper Jones
- Length: 10 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
So begins Chloé Cooper Jones’s bold, revealing account of moving through the world in a body that looks different than most. Jones learned early on to factor “pain calculations” into every plan, every situation. Born with a rare congenital condition called sacral agenesis which affects both her stature and gait, her pain is physical. But there is also the pain of being judged and pitied for her appearance, of being dismissed as “less than.”
-
-
Understanding Disabilities Increased
- By Gwendolyn Lewis on 06-10-22
-
You Could Make This Place Beautiful
- A Memoir
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 7 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In her memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes.
-
-
Beautiful, relatable, profound
- By Betty Blue on 04-16-23
By: Maggie Smith
-
Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You
- A Memoir
- By: Lucinda Williams
- Narrated by: Lucinda Williams
- Length: 6 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lucinda Williams’s rise to fame was anything but easy. Raised in a working-class family in the Deep South, she moved from town to town each time her father—a poet, a textbook salesman, a professor, a lover of parties—got a new job, totaling twelve different places by the time she was eighteen. Her mother suffered from severe mental illness and was in and out of hospitals. And when Williams was about a year old, she had to have an emergency tracheotomy—an inauspicious start for a singing career. But she was also born a fighter, and she would develop a voice that has captivated millions.
-
-
Someone should have told her
- By Jill on 05-09-23
By: Lucinda Williams
-
The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece
- A Novel
- By: Tom Hanks
- Narrated by: Tom Hanks, Peter Gerety, Natalie Morales, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the legendary actor and best-selling author: a novel about the making of a star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film...and the humble comic books that inspired it. Funny, touching, and wonderfully thought-provoking, while also capturing the changes in America and American culture since World War II.
-
-
I could never stay married to an actor,
- By PattyQB on 05-11-23
By: Tom Hanks
-
A Thread of Violence
- A Story of Truth, Invention, and Murder
- By: Mark O'Connell
- Narrated by: Mark O'Connell
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Malcolm Macarthur was a well-known Dublin socialite. Suave and urbane, he passed his days mingling with artists and aristocrats, reading philosophy, living a life of the mind. But by 1982, his inheritance had dwindled to almost nothing, a desperate threat to his lifestyle. Macarthur hastily conceived a plan: He would commit bank robbery, of the kind that had become frightfully common in Dublin at the time. But his plan spun swiftly out of control, and he needlessly killed two innocent civilians.
-
-
A meandering waste of time
- By Kate on 01-06-24
By: Mark O'Connell
-
Love, Pamela
- A Memoir of Prose, Poetry, and Truth
- By: Pamela Anderson
- Narrated by: Pamela Anderson
- Length: 5 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this honest, layered and unforgettable book that alternates between storytelling and her own poetry, Pamela Anderson breaks the mold of the celebrity memoir while taking back the tale that has been crafted about her. Her blond bombshell image was ubiquitous in the 1990s. Discovered in the stands of a football game, she was immediately rocket launched into fame, becoming Playboy’s favorite cover girl and an emblem of Hollywood glamour and sexuality. But what happens when you lose grip on your own life—and the image the notoriety machine creates for you is not who you really are?
-
-
Pam Anderson Can’t Make Up Her Mind
- By Kimberly Salinas on 02-11-23
By: Pamela Anderson
Critic reviews
"There’s anger in Molly Ringwald’s voice as she narrates these accounts of Maria Schneider’s memories of the movie LAST TANGO IN PARIS, in particular Schneider’s notorious sex scene with Marlon Brando. Mostly, Ringwald’s narration captures author Vanessa Schneider’s writing, which sounds as though she’s conversing with her late cousin. Vanessa’s many recollections are brief — full of sadness at Maria’s life, which included a heroin problem and treatment in a sanatorium. She also recalls Maria’s joys, such as drawing with pastels. Ringwald does a great re-creation of the vague, seemingly offhand comments that Maria gave to a reporter’s questions about the shocking movie scene. The audiobook is a loving tribune, even as it reveals the toll that the controversial film took on the actress’s life." (AudioFile Magazine)
What listeners say about My Cousin Maria Schneider
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jennifer M. Allen
- 04-24-23
Beautiful , Honest
I love reads like this, full of love and admiration but told with open eyes and honesty .
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- E. Maldonado
- 12-06-23
Bittersweet memories of Maria
I loved Listening to molly on Vanessa’s memories of her cousin it was beautifully written and verbally articulated.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Daisy
- 05-02-23
Don’t waste your time
This book is probably one of the worst I have had. It may have been a better read if it were an actual life story but a cousin writing her story was just terrible! Audible should not have charged me for this terrible book!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- M'Lisse Ramsey
- 06-11-23
Boring mostly.
For such a dramatic life, it droned on with the narration, and I found myself wishing it would end.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!