Eva Renzi

About Eva Renzi

Eva Renzi,was a German film, television, and stage actress who gained international recognition in the 1960s with roles in Funeral in Berlin and Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. Known for turning down high-profile roles, she later worked mainly on stage. Controversial and outspoken, she remained active in theater until her death from lung cancer in 2005.

Born Evelyn Reniehausen to the daughter of a Danish industrialist and a French mother. She grew up as an orphan from 1947 and was educated at convent schools.

she enrolled in the Berlin Actors' Studio at age 16 and began appearing in plays in Germany. For eight months she played a maid in the German translation of Noël Coward's Dinner at Eight. At age 19, she gave birth to her daughter Anouschka in 1964, who was fathered by a Brazilian bar owner named Raimundo; when the marriage ended, she began a modelling career to support herself and her daughter. After modelling clothing in German magazines and newspapers, she was introduced to film audiences in Will Tremper's That Woman (1966) and made her international debut the same year in the British film Funeral in Berlin, the second Harry Palmer film, as Israeli agent Samantha Steel, appearing with Michael Caine.

Renzi was offered a leading role in the next planned James Bond film, You Only Live Twice, but Renzi declined the role, commenting in an interview in Newark Evening News that "Bond pictures are good for pretty girls but not for actresses. I would rather sell shoes." She turned down other roles, including an offer by director Orson Welles, due to her husband's jealousy. When she and Hubschmid began their separation, eventually leading to divorce, her career stagnated further.

She later featured with James Garner in The Pink Jungle (1968) as Alison Duquesne, and in the giallo thriller The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) as Monica Ranieri.

In 1973, Renzi caused a sensation in the tabloid press by taking a months-long trip to India and becoming involved with the Rajneesh movement, which she later left, accusing the leader, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, of fascist tendencies and abusing drugs.

Renzi continued acting on stage after her film career had largely ended. In 1983, she was dismissed from the Bad Hersfelder Festspiele, a theater festival, for referring to President Karl Carstens, who had joined the Brownshirts in 1934, as an "old Nazi". In 2002, she staged a comeback in the play Amanda, which featured a monologue of a woman who emancipates herself after the death of her husband.

From 1967 until 1980, she was married to Swiss actor Paul Hubschmid with whom she appeared in several films. She was the mother of actress Anouschka Renzi.

On August 16, 2005 Renzi died of lung cancer at the age of 60 in Berlin She was buried at Luisenfriedhof III.