Claudia Cardinale

Although his parents were Italian, Claude Josephine Rose Cardin was born in Tunisia on April 15, 1939. He grew up there, with his eight siblings, and as a teenager he won a Tunisian beauty contest, which gave him some popularity, so he started to think that he had a chance to succeed in the cinema. Before she did anything, she decided to acquire training at the prestigious Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. According to what is said, although it is not entirely clear, a very tragic event marks this stage of her life, because when she was 17 years old, she apparently was the victim of a rape. As a consequence of it, she gave birth to Patrick, her eldest son. Her then very young CC did not allow herself to be intimidated by the difficulties in reconciling her recently acquired motherhood with her work, and she began her career in the cinema with a supporting role inGoha , from 1958, the same year in which she was successful internationally with Rufufú , one of the great titles of Italian comedy, where she was the sister of a guy so jealous that he wouldn’t even let her leave the house.

Turned into a fashionable actress, 1960 was the year of CC, as she appeared in three first-rate films, El bello Antonio , by Mauro Bolognini , The girl with the suitcase , by Valerio Zurlini , and above all Rocco and his brothers , one of Visconti’s big titles, though her role, as the wife of Rocco’s older brother, is fairly brief.

During the 1960s, CC established herself as one of the greats of her country’s cinema, with titles such as Fellini 8 y 1/2 , where she was the muse that inspired the director played by Marcello Mastroianni . One of her best works is The Leopard , again by Visconti, although this time she gives it more scope, in her role as Angelica, the daughter of a nouveau riche, about to marry the nephew of Fabrizio di Salina, the decadent nobleman. who stars in the film. These and other European films ( The Rogue Maidens , Cartouche , Bube’s Girl ) opened the doors of Hollywood for her, where she filmed The Pink Panther ,The fabulous world of the circus , The professionals and Don’t make waves , among others. Since she was never very fluent in English, she did not become established in the United States, so she concentrated on her European career.

In 1966 she married Franco Cristaldi, a producer who had given her her first opportunities in the cinema. She, however, was not long in divorcing, and dating Pasquale Squitieri , director of second-rate spaghetti-westerns, with whom she had a daughter.

CC ended the 1960s in a glorious way, with titles like the memorable Hasta que llegó su hora , by Sergio Leone , but in the 1970s his career gradually deflated. Few titles survived those years, such as the entertaining The Clan of the Marseillaises , alongside Jean-Paul Belmondo , Confidences , by Visconti –where her presence is anecdotal–, Jesus of Nazareth , by Franco Zeffirelli , where she was the adulteress, and a little more. Despite everything, she has remained active throughout her life, with titles such as Fitzcarraldo , by Werner Herzog, his last great work, because from there he chained uneven television series and low-quality film by-products. With progressive political convictions, CC has been involved in various humanitarian causes. She has also made her first steps as a writer, as she has published her memoirs, ‘Moi Claudia, Toi Claudia’, and the book ‘Mes Étoiles’, about her relationships with the directors and co-stars with the that she has worked