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Nastassja Kinski

Born in Berlin, Kinski is the daughter of the late German actor Klaus Kinski from his marriage to actress Ruth Brigitte Tocki. Her parents divorced in 1968. Kinski rarely saw her father after the age of 10. Kinski and her mother struggled financially.[1] Eventually they lived in a commune in Munich.

Kinski's career began in Germany where she started as a model. At 13, the German New Wave actress Lisa Kreuzer placed her in the role of the dumb Mignon in Wim Wenders' film The Wrong Move. In her mid-teens she starred in the British Hammer Film Productions' horror film To The Devil A Daughter (1976). Kinski has gained notoriety through nude appearances in these films while still a minor. This is linked to controversy as to the year of her birth, apparently reported to American authorities as 1959 though German records show 1961. (Variety states 1960.[1]) She has stated that as a child she felt exploited by the industry and told a journalist from W Magazine, "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". [2]

Kinski starred in an erotic film Stay as you are (1978) with Marcello Mastroianni. New Line Cinema released it in the United States in December 1979, helping Kinski to get more recognition there. TIME Magazine said: "Kinski is simply ravishing, genuinely sexy and high-spirited without being painfully aggressive about it."[2]

At 15[3] Kinski began a romantic relationship with director Roman Polanski, 28 years her senior. Polanski urged her to study acting with Lee Strasberg in the USA and cast her in his film, Tess (1979). Shortly after this screen success, photographer Richard Avedon photographed Kinski with a serpent coiled around her naked body (1981).

In 1982 Kinski appeared as "Leila" the circus girl in the Francis Ford Coppola/Dean Tavoularis collaboration One From The Heart which bankrupted Coppola's American Zoetrope studio. In 1982 she made Cat People, and then Unfaithfully Yours, and The Hotel New Hampshire, which performed poorly at the box office and with critics. Critics praised her in Paris, Texas, and the film won awards at Cannes, but in the U.S the film was not widely released. Kinski then split her time between Europe and the United States, making Moon in the Gutter (1983), Harem (1985) and Torrents of Spring (1989) in the former, and Exposed (1983), Maria's Lovers (1984) and Revolution (1985) in the latter. Kinski's luck turned in the 1990s when she appeared in films such as Terminal Velocity opposite Charlie Sheen and Mike Figgis' critically acclaimed One Night Stand.

In the mid-1980s Kinski met Egyptian film maker Ibrahim Moussa. They married on September 10, 1984. They raised Aljosha (born June 29, 1984) and daughter Sonja Leila, now a model, born March 2, 1986. The marriage was dissolved in 1992. From 1991 until 1997 Kinski lived with music impresario Quincy Jones. On February 9, 1993 their daughter Kenya Julia Miambi Sara was born.

Appearances of note have included Martin Donovan's Somebody Is Waiting (1996), Neil LaBute's Your Friends & Neighbors (1998), John Landis' Susan's Plan (1998), Chris Menges' The Lost Son (1999), Michael Winterbottom's The Claim (2000), and David Lynch's Inland Empire (2006).

Kinski speaks German, English, French, Italian and Russian fluently and is a vegetarian.[citation needed]

Kinski is mentioned in songs "Up On The Catwalk" by Simple Minds, though singer Jim Kerr pronounces her name incorrectly as "Natasha", and "Mani me se lepa Nasto" by Đorđe Balašević


What members say | Filmography

Nastassja Kinski - what members say


  • Susan's Plan
  • Susan's Plan review by GPPP from Middlesex
    Rated - 1 stars Complete waste of time 19 June 2004
    ...mour - everything is done really badly. With a cast that includes Dan Aykroyd, Nastassja Kinski, and Lara Flynn Boyle - you'd expect a whole lot more. It looks and feels like ...  

Nastassja Kinski - filmography


  • Cold Heart on DVD (2001)
    Starring: Jeff Fahey,  Nastassja Kinski,  Josh Holloway
    Director: Dennis Dimster
    Certificate: 18
    Linda has a thriving business and a marriage she believes to be perfect. When temptation arrives she starts an affair with the new P.A. He, however, is a psychiatric patient of her husband's who preys on vulnerable women...
    Rate this: 2.0 40% from 93 members
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  • Red Letters on DVD (2000)
    Starring: Peter Coyote,  Nastassja Kinski,  Jeremy Piven
    Director: Bradley Battersby
    Certificate: 15
    A university professor embarks on an affair with a convicted murderess, only to become convinced she's been the victim of a frame by a former lover. Soon, he begins a series of dogged attempts to convince a weary police detective of the truth.
    Rate this: 2.0 38% from 60 members
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  • Susan's Plan (1999)
    Starring: Nastassja Kinski,  Billy Zane,  Michael Biehn
    Director: John Landis
    Certificate: 18
    A woman has her eye on her former husband's life insurance should the worst happen. But to speed things along a little she plans his murder. The bumbling killers she employs to do the job stumble from one mess to another...
    Rate this: 2.0 41% from 219 members
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  • Somebody Is Waiting on DVD (1996)
    Starring: Gabriel Byrne,  Nastassja Kinski,  Johnny Whitworth
    Director: Martin Donovan
    Certificate: 15
    Leon Ellis is a kind-hearted, well-intentioned boy who just can't seem to stay out of trouble. His mother Charlotte is the soul of goodness, dedicated to her five children but burdened with the sorrows of her cruel and nasty alcoholic husband, who leaves the family destitute. However, when ..read more »
    Rate this: 2.0 37% from 46 members
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  • Revolution (1985)
    Starring: Donald Sutherland,  Al Pacino,  Nastassja Kinski
    Director: Hugh Hudson
    Certificate: TBC
    Set against the American War of Independence, this film deals with a romance between a trapper and a woman of wealth and also depicts an English soldier's life amongst the arrogant British ranks.
    Rate this: 2.0 42% from 17 members
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  • The Hotel New Hampshire on DVD (1984)
    Starring: Jodie Foster,  Beau Bridges,  Nastassja Kinski
    Director: Tony Richardson
    Certificate: 18
    British director Tony Richardson takes on John Irving's picaresque black comedy about an eccentric and unusually peripatetic family in a film starring Rob Lowe as John Berry, the family's oldest son. John's father, Win (Beau Bridges), is obsessed with hotels, so he buys a run-down seminary in New ..read more »
    Rate this: 3.0 56% from 186 members
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  • Tess on DVD (1979)
    Starring: Nastassja Kinski,  Peter Firth,  Leigh Lawson
    Director: Roman Polanski
    Certificate: PG
    Based on Thomas Hardy's tragic 1891 novel TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES, TESS follows the hard life of a beautiful young Wessex peasant girl, who seeks her fortune with the wealthy D'Urbervilles, whom her family believes to be distant relatives. Tess's tragic fate is sealed the moment the manipulative ..read more »
    Rate this: 3.5 70% from 356 members
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  • Blind Terror on DVD
    Starring: Nastassja Kinski,  Stewart Bick,  Maxim Roy
    Director: Giles Walker
    Certificate: 15
    The wonder of romance captures Susan (Nastassja Kinski) so completely that she impulsively marries a man who she hardly knows. Marital bliss soon becomes a domestic nightmare when Susan is the subject of telephone terrorism from a woman who claims to be an ex-lover of Susan's new husband. Susan ..read more »
    Rate this: 2.0 41% from 18 members
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Nastassja Kinski facts

5 most recent films


Mary Higgins Clark - All Around The Town - 2.5 stars
Diary Of A Sex Addict - 1.5 stars
The Day The World Ended - 2.0 stars
Rip Off - 2.0 stars
Say Nothing - 2.0 stars

5 highest-rated films


Tess - 3.5 stars
Savior - 3.5 stars
Danielle Steel's The Ring - 3.0 stars
The Lost Son - 3.0 stars
Terminal Velocity - 3.0 stars

5 lowest-rated films


Somebody Is Waiting - 2.0 stars
Blind Terror - 2.0 stars
Revolution - 2.0 stars
Maria's Lovers - 3.0 stars
Far Away, So Close - 3.0 stars

Most frequent co-stars


Anita Morris - 2 times - show films
Ed Begley Jr. - 2 times - show films
Gabriel Byrne - 1 times - show films
Wilford Brimley - 1 times - show films
Julian Richings - 1 times - show films

Most frequent directors


Alan Moyle - 1 times - show films
Bradley Battersby - 1 times - show films
John Landis - 1 times - show films
Roman Polanski - 1 times - show films
Peter Antonijevic - 1 times - show films