Actor Maximilian Schell dead at 83: agent
Oscar award winning actor Maximilian Schell has died at the age of 83.
VIENNA (AFP) - Austrian actor Maximilian Schell, who won an Oscar for best actor for his role in the 1961 film "Judgment at Nuremberg", has died at the age of 83, his agent announced Saturday.
Schell died following "a sudden and serious illness", agent Patricia Baumbauer said.
The actor took ill on January 18 in Kitzbuhel, western Austria, where he was filming for German channel ZDF, the Austrian news agency APA reported.
He died after leaving the hospital on Tuesday, APA reported after having initially said he died overnight in a clinic in the western Austrian city of Innsbruck.
Born in Vienna, before fleeing with his parents into exile in Switzerland following Austria s annexation by the Nazis in 1938, he returned to Austria after the war and later became a successful Hollywood actor.
Schell started at the age of 23 as a stage actor in the Swiss town of Basel, but spent a long time in the shadow of his older sister Maria Schell, who also broke into Hollywood.
He modestly declared he "remained in her shadow all of his life". His devotion to his sister was apparent in 2002 when he produced an intimate documentary, entitled "My Sister Maria", chronicling her life, career and struggle with illness.
He made his Hollywood debut in 1958 at 28 years old, acting beside Marlon Brando in "The Young Lions", a film by Edward Dmytryk.
