©Courtesy of “Once Upon a Time in West”
Claudia Cardinale, the legendary Italian actor who appeared in more than 100 films and television productions, has died in Nemours, France at the age of 87. In announcing her death, her agent Laurent Savry was quoted as saying: “She leaves us the legacy of a free and inspired woman both as a woman and as an artiste.”
Described by one critic as the “embodiment of postwar European glamour,” Cardinale said her greatest compliment came from David Niven, who told her, “Claudia, along with spaghetti, you’re Italy’s greatest invention.”
Cardinale was born to Sicilian parents in Tunisia and first came to prominence in 1958 when she appeared in Goha, a film that starred Omar Sharif. Over the next few years, she starred in some of the iconic Italian films of that era, including Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2 and Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard. Her other films included Cartouche, Girl With a Suitcase, Rocco and His Brothers, and La Viaccia.
Beginning in 1963, Cardinale also appeared in Hollywood productions such as The Pink Panther, Blindfold, Don’t Make Waves, The Hell With Heroes, and The Professionals. In 1968, her role as Jill McBain in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West brought much critical acclaim in its wake.
Cardinale continued her prolific career through the 1970s in numerous movies, such as A Girl in Australia, Blood Brothers, Corleone, The Day of the Owl, Escape To Athena, The Legend of Frenchie King, and in Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo. She made her last film, The Island of Forgiveness, in 2022 when she was 84.
The iconic actor was awarded a Career Golden Lion at the Venice film festival in 2002, the same year she won an Honorary Golden Bear in Berlin. Active in feminist causes, she served for the past quarter century as a UNESCO goodwill ambassador for the Defense of Women’s Rights.
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Reflecting on her six-decade career, Cardinale herself had said, “I’ve lived more than 150 lives: prostitute, saint, romantic, every kind of woman, and that is marvellous to have this opportunity to change yourself.”
The actor had two children, one with her husband Franco Cristaldi, whom she divorced, and another with her longtime companion, producer Pasquale Squitieri.