Legendary Italian actress Claudia Cardinale, the Hollywood bombshell that starred in some of cinema’s most celebrated films including Federico Fellini’s “8½” and Luchino Visconti’s “The Leopard,” died Tuesday at her home in Nemours, France. She was 87.
Cardinale died surrounded by her children, her agent Laurent Savry said. No cause of death was provided.
Born Claude Joséphine Rose Cardinale in La Goulette, near Tunis, on April 15, 1938, to Sicilian parents, Cardinale became one of Europe’s most prominent stars of the 1960s alongside Sophia Loren and Anna Magnani.
Her path to fame began when she won “The Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia” in 1957, which came with a trip to the Venice Film Festival where she caught the attention of film producers.
“The fact I’m making movies is just an accident,” Cardinale said while accepting a lifetime achievement award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2002. “When they asked me ‘do you want to be in the movies?’ I said no and they insisted for six months”.
Cardinale starred in more than 100 films during her six-decade career. She was best known for her role as the youthful muse in Fellini’s 1963 masterpiece “8½” opposite Marcello Mastroianni, and as Angelica in Visconti’s “The Leopard” the same year.
Her Hollywood breakthrough came with “The Pink Panther” in 1963 alongside Peter Sellers and David Niven.
“The best compliment I ever got was from actor David Niven while filming ‘The Pink Panther,'” Cardinale recalled. “He said: ‘Claudia, along with spaghetti, you’re Italy’s greatest invention'”.
Cardinale considered “The Professionals” (1966), where she starred alongside Burt Lancaster, Jack Palance, Robert Ryan and Lee Marvin, as her best American film.
Her other notable films included Sergio Leone’s “Once Upon a Time in the West” (1968), where she played a reformed prostitute, and “Rocco and His Brothers” (1960) with Alain Delon.
“They gave me everything,” Cardinale once said. “It’s marvelous to live so many lives. I’ve been living more than 150 lives, totally different women”.
Cardinale’s personal life included challenges early in her career. She secretly gave birth to son Patrick in London when she was 19, with the child initially presented as her younger brother to avoid scandal. Patrick spent his early childhood with her parents, unaware Cardinale was his mother for the first seven years of his life.
She married producer Franco Cristaldi in 1966 but they divorced in 1975. Cardinale said her “only love” was Neapolitan director Pasquale Squitieri, with whom she lived for 42 years until his death in 2017. They had a daughter, Claudia, and collaborated on numerous films.
Cardinale was named a UNESCO goodwill ambassador for the defense of women’s rights in 2000. She received a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement from the Venice Film Festival and won three David di Donatello Awards for best actress.
Refusing cosmetic surgery, she continued performing into her 80s, including theatrical work in Naples.
World leaders paid tribute to Cardinale Tuesday. Italian President Sergio Mattarella called her “an extraordinary artist, an unforgettable star in Italian and international films”. French President Emmanuel Macron said the French “will always carry this Italian and world star in our hearts, in the eternity of cinema”.
Cardinale leaves behind her children Patrick and Claudia, cementing a legacy as one of cinema’s most enduring and captivating stars.