Chapter 1 "I had a beautiful life," you say with a tired smile. It's a few days before your death and you're lost in happy memories. Your voice is soft, like a finger gliding along a piece of velvet. You don't say it to make us happy, or to convince yourself--that isn't your way. At first, I don't understand. Your declaration seems like a dissonant note in an otherwise harmonic chord. For so long now I've been worrying about you--years of my life spent living through your pain and misfortune until it became nearly indistinguishable from my own. And yet, here we are. "I had a beautiful life." I'm so glad you see it this way. You are fifty-eight years old when you die. Far too young--and yet we never thought you would make it even that long. Most people assumed that you had died years ago. To them, you're already a figure from the distant past. After your death, the media thrusts you back into the spotlight. The articles all tell the same story, more or less, cobbled together from the same hackneyed clichés: "Erotic Actress" and "Lost Child of the Cinema." They write about The Last Tango in Paris and of your "ruined career" and "tragic destiny." There's the hedonism of the seventies, the cruelty of the film business and, of course, the sex and drugs. No one writes about how, when you die, you are sipping champagne, your favorite drink--the one that could make you forget your childhood and help fill in the cracks of a fractured, sensitive soul. You leave us amidst bubbles and bursts of laughter, loving faces and smiles---upright with your head held high, a little tipsy. With panache. Excerpted from My Cousin Maria Schneider: A Memoir by Vanessa Schneider All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.