Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass: What happened to Roman Polanski’s ex-wife

Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass is a Polish actress and the ex-wife of Roman Polanski. Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass’ ex-husband is a French and Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, two British Academy Film Awards, nine César Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, as well as the Golden Bear and a Palme d’Or.

Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass: Bio Summary

Who was Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass?

Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass was born on June 1, 1940, the daughter of  Franciszek Kwiatkowski and Franciszka Kwiatkowska 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). Unfortunately, Barbara sadly passed away at the age of 54. what was the cause of her death? Keep reading to learn more about her.

As a young girl, Kwiatkowska-Lass took ballet and dance lessons but eventually lost interest while growing up and rather took on acting as a career. Before she had her first acting gig, Kwiatkowska-Lass won a contest organized by a popular Polish cinema magazine, a competition called “Piekne dziewczyny na ekrany” (“Pretty Girls on to the Screens”).

She began her acting career in 1957 with a role in Tadeusz Chmielewski’s comedy Ewa chce spać which she gained wider popularity in Poland. She had the role in the comedy film because she won the contest organized by the cinema magazine. During filming, she met Roman Polanski, whom she later married per IMDb.

Two years after her first gig, Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass left Poland for the West and changed her last name to Lass for the sake of foreign viewers. She quickly became a major star in films such as La millième fenêtre (with Jean-Louis Trintignant) and The Joy of Living (with Alain Delon). She appeared in several films in Italy, France, and Germany, including Krzysztof Zanussi’s Bluebeard [pl] (1984) and Sting in the Flesh [de] (1981).

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.

Roman Polanski was the first man she married

As said earlier, Roman Polanski and Kwiatkowska-Lass meet while filming her gig. The couple got married in 1959 in a beautiful wedding ceremony, promising each other forever, but things didn’t go as planned. Three years after they tied the knot, the couple called their marriage a quit. They didn’t have any children. The reason behind their divorce was also not made public.

The following year Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass met actor Karlheinz Böhm in Tokyo on the set of the film Rififi in Tokyo (1963), the couple bonded and began dating and eventually later got married. Their marriage was blessed with a child, their daughter is actress Katharina Böhm.

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Her daughter Katharina Böhm, is an actress, known for Amico mio (1993), Die Unzertrennlichen (1997), and Kaltes Fieber (1984). Kwiatkowska-Lass divorced Böhm in 1980 after being together for 17 years, and married Polish jazz musician Leszek Żądło, with whom she lived until her death.

What happened to Barbara Kwiatkowska-Lass, how did she die?

Roman Polanski’s ex-wife passed away on 6 March 1995. Kwiatkowska-Lass collapsed and died from a brain hemorrhage in Munich Germany. She was 54 years old at the time of her sad passing. She was interred in Kraków’s Rakowicki Cemetery.