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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

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