Romy Schneider is the only actress I´d count as an international star. Coming from Austria and always acclaimed German by Germany. Living in Paris and feeling like a French woman for the better part of her life she worked opposite France´s larger-than-life male icons from Jean-Louis Trintignant or Yves Montant to Michel Piccoli. And - of course - Alain Delon.

No wonder I have collected a lot of books about her, some of them you can see on the picture above.

She had a son who died in a tragic accident when he was only a teenager and a daugher who was five when her mother died, leaving her behind with her father for a more secluded life; she decided to become an actress herself only later in life.

When Sarah Biasini became pregnant with a daughter herself she decided to write about that tragic relationship with a mother who belonged to the public world as much as she belonged to her family; there is a chapter about that dreadful German bio-pic "Drei Tage in Quiberon" that the daughter would have loved to debar - positive her mother would have done the same.

As a devoted fan of Romy Schneider and the reader of many so called Memoirs I am still touched by the honesty of this little book.

After all - who are we to judge. Sarah Biasini is the daugher of a mother who became a myth much too early in her life.

She will forever be the only person who really owns her.