Maria Schneider, the French actress whose sex scenes with Marlon Brando in “Last Tango in Paris” set a new standard for explicitness on screen, died Thursday in Paris. She was 58.

A spokesman for her agency, Act 1, said she had died after a long illness, but provided no other details.

The baby-faced, voluptuous Schneider was only 19 when the Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci chose her for the role of the free-spirited, mysterious Jeanne in “Last Tango.” She seemed, he said in explaining the choice, “like a Lolita, but more perverse.”

The part was originally intended for Dominique Sanda, who dropped out after becoming pregnant.

The film shocked audiences upon its release in 1972 . The Motion Picture Association of America gave the film an X rating.

“Last Tango” fixed Schneider in the public mind as a symbol of the sexual revolution. She spent years trying to move beyond the role, for which she was paid $4,000, and the notoriety that came with it.