Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass

Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass (1 June 1940 – 6 March 1995) was a Polish actress.

Barbara Kwiatkowska was born in Patrowo, a village near Gostynin in central Poland, then under German-occupied Poland, which the Nazis had renamed Gasten in 1939 through 1941 (at time of her birth). Then changed to Walrode from June 1941 until the end of the war. Although she received ballet and dance education, she eventually took up an acting career. After her debut role in Tadeusz Chmielewski's comedy Ewa chce spać (1957) she gained wider popularity in Poland. The role had been offered to her after she took the first place in a contest organized by a popular Polish cinema magazine.

In 1959 she left Poland for the West and soon starred in a few major films like La millième fenêtre (with Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Che gioia vivere (with Alain Delon). She played roles in several Italian, French and German films such as Krzysztof Zanussi's Blaubart (1983) and in Stachel im Fleisch [de] (1981).

She married film director Roman Polanski in 1959; they divorced in 1962. The following year she met Karlheinz Böhm on the set of the movie Rififi in Tokyo [fr] (Rififi à Tokyo, 1963) in Tokyo; the couple later married, their daughter is actress Katharina Böhm. Kwiatkowska-Lass divorced Böhm in 1980, and married Polish jazz musician Leszek Żądło, with whom she lived until her death.

Politics

Kwiatkowska was opposed to the Communist regime in Poland and cooperated with the United States-controlled Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which transmitted anti-communist propaganda, information and programmes free from censorship to Poland.

On 6 March 1995, Kwiatkowska-Lass collapsed and died from a brain hemorrhage aged 54, in Munich. She was interred in Kraków's Rakowicki Cemetery.