Nastassja Kinski

Lore & Background

Born Nastassja Aglaia Nakszynski in West Berlin, she is the daughter of German actor Klaus Kinski and his second wife, actress Ruth Brigitte Tocki. She is of partial Polish descent, for her grandfather Bruno Nakszynski was a Germanized ethnic Pole. Kinski has two half-siblings: Pola and Nikolai Kinski. Her parents divorced in 1968. After the age of 10, Kinski rarely saw her father. Her young mother struggled financially to support them; they eventually lived in a commune in Munich. In a 1999 interview, Kinski denied that her father had molested her as a child, but said he had abused her 'in other ways'. In 2013, when interviewed about the allegations of sexual abuse made by her half-sister Pola Kinski, she confirmed that he attempted this with her, but did not succeed. She said, 'He was no father. Ninety-nine percent of the time I was terrified of him. He was so unpredictable that the family lived in constant terror.' When asked what she would say to him now, if she had the chance, she replied, 'I would do anything to put him behind bars for life. I am glad he is no longer alive.'

Reader's Guide

Kinski began working as a model as a teenager in Germany. Actress Lisa Kreuzer of the German New Wave helped get her the role of the mute Mignon in Wim Wenders 1975 film The Wrong Move, in which at the age of 13 she was depicted topless. She later played one of the leading roles in Wenders' film Paris, Texas (1984) and appeared in his film Faraway, So Close (1993). In 1976, while still a teenager, Kinski had her first two major roles. She played Sina Wolf in Wolfgang Petersen's feature film-length episode Reifezeugnis of the German TV crime series Tatort, and played Catherine Beddows in the horror film To the Devil a Daughter (1976), co-produced by Hammer Film Productions and Terra Film. The film was released in the UK just 40 days after Kinski's fifteenth birthday, making it a virtual certainty she was only fourteen when her scenes were shot (including full frontal nudity). In regards to her early films, Kinski has stated that she felt exploited by the industry. In an interview with W, she said, 'If I had had somebody to protect me or if I had felt more secure about myself, I would not have accepted certain things. Nudity things. And inside it was just tearing me apart.' In 1978, Kinski starred in the Italian romance Stay as You Are (Così come sei) with Marcello Mastroianni, gaining her recognition in the United States after New Line Cinema released it there in December 1979. Time wrote that she was 'simply ravishing, genuinely sexy and high-spirited without being painfully aggressive about it.' The film also received a major international release from Columbia Pictures. Kinski met the director Roman Polanski at a party in 1976. He urged her to study method acting with Lee Strasberg in the United States and she was offered the title role in Polanski's upcoming film, Tess (1979). In 1978, Kinski underwent extensive preparation for the portrayal of an English peasant girl, which included acquiring a Dorset accent through elocution studies. Tess was nominated for six awards, including Best Picture, at the 53rd Academy Awards, and won three. On 14 June 1981, Vogue editor Polly Allen Mellen asked Nastassja Kinski what she liked and Kinski replied, 'snakes,' then a Burmese python was hired for the photoshoot with Richard Avedon, with resulting photograph of Kinski with a Burmese python coiled around her nude body, 'Nastassja Kinski and the Serpent, Los Angeles, C

Did You Know?

• Kinski was born Nastassja Aglaia Nakszynski in West Berlin.
• She is the daughter of German actor Klaus Kinski.
• Her worldwide breakthrough was with the 1978 film Stay as You Are.
• She gained global prominence for her role in Tess (1979), directed by Roman Polanski.
• The famous 1981 photograph 'Nastassja Kinski and the Serpent' was taken by Richard Avedon.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Nastassja Aglaia Kinski (born January 24, 1961) is a German-born American actress. She is the daughter of Klaus Kinski." — Nastassja Kinski "I have never met a man like my father. He is so mad, terrible and vehement at the same time. Because of him, I never knew anything other than passion. When I began to meet other people I saw that it wasn’t normal." — Nastassja Kinski "As quoted in Denise Worrell (1989), Icons: Intimate Portraits." — Nastassja Kinski "As quoted in Denise Worrell (1989), Icons: Intimate Portraits." — Nastassja Kinski