Catherine Schell
Catherine Schell is a Hungarian-born British actress who came to prominence in British film and television productions from the 1960s. Her notable roles include the Bond girl Nancy in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Lady Claudine Litton in The Return of the Pink Panther, Countess Scarlioni in the Doctor Who serial City of Death, and a regular role as Maya in Year Two of the television series Space: 1999.
Early life
Schell's father, Baron Pál Schell von Bauschlott, was a Hungarian diplomat of three-quarter Hungarian ancestry; her mother was Countess Katalin Mária Etelka Georgina Erzsébet Teleki de Szék. "Schell" is the family name, while "von Bauschlott" indicates the place in Germany where the Schell family owned its main estate.Fleeing Hungary in advance of the Soviets and communism, the family lived in poverty until 1948, finding asylum in Austria: first in Vienna, then in Salzburg. In 1950, the family emigrated to the United States, where Schell's father acquired American citizenship.
Schell entered a convent school in the New York City borough of Staten Island. In 1957, her father joined Radio Free Europe and the family moved to Munich where Schell developed an interest in acting and attended the Otto Falckenberg School of the Performing Arts.
Career
Film
She acted under the alternative name "Catherina von Schell" early in her career. Under this name she made her film debut as the title character in the German-language film Lana, Queen of the Amazons. She appeared as Bond girl Nancy in the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, with George Lazenby in the lead. Around the same time, she appeared in Hammer Films science-fiction thriller Moon Zero Two cast in the role of Clementine Taplin. She appeared with Bette Davis, now credited as Catherine Schell, in Madame Sin, a television film made by ITC which was released theatrically in some markets.Schell appeared opposite Peter Sellers in the comedy The Return of the Pink Panther as Lady Claudine Lytton. Schell appeared with Sellers again in The Prisoner of Zenda, one of his last films.
Television
Schell's first TV credit was Till Eulenspiegel, a West German comedy in which she played Nele and was billed as Katherina von Schell.Schell spent much of her career in British television, appearing in more than 47 series spanning a period of nearly 30 years. She played regular roles in series such as The Adventurer, Looking For Clancy, One by One, Mog and Wish Me Luck, in addition to many guest appearances, including The Persuaders!, The Troubleshooters, Arthur of the Britons, Return of the Saint, The Sweeney, The Onedin Line, The Gentle Touch, Lovejoy, Bergerac, The Bill, Howards' Way and The Search for the Nile.
Schell appeared in the science-fiction series Space: 1999 as a robotic servant, and returned to the series in its second season as the regular character Maya, a shape-shifting "metamorph" from the planet Psychon. Schell appeared in another British science-fiction series, as Countess Scarlioni in the Doctor Who serial City of Death.
Personal life
Marriages
While filming Amsterdam Affair in 1968, Schell met and married her first husband, British actor William Marlowe, and moved to London. The marriage ended in divorce in 1977. Schell married director Bill Hays in 1982. In 1984, they worked together for the first time as husband and wife on a TV production of Ivan Turgenev's play A Month in the Country.Retirement
Schell's career continued into the mid-1990s, after which she retired from acting and in 1996, opened Valentin, a small guesthouse in Bonneval, Haute-Loire, France.In September 2000, in New York City, Schell made her first convention appearance at MainMission: 2000, a celebration of the 25th anniversary of Space: 1999. To date, she has appeared at only one other convention, mainly due to the declining health of her second husband Bill Hays .
In 2010, Schell contributed a foreword to the Space: 1999 novel Born for Adversity, written by David McIntee and published by Powys Media.
In 2016, the first part of Schell's autobiography, A Constant Alien was published. In 2018, the second part of Schell's autobiography, When God Was Out For Lunch, was published.
Around 2020, Schell came out of acting retirement to portray the Grand Duchess Valeria in the BBC One/Netflix series Dracula, which aired in 2020.
Around 2022, Schell came out of acting retirement to portray Zoya Krupp, the Count's Romani ex-wife, in The Munsters, a horror comedy film produced, written, and directed by Rob Zombie.
As of 2022, Schell is based in France.