The legendary Hollywood star Claudia Cardinale, best known for her roles in movies like The Pink Panther and Once Upon A Time In The West, died on Tuesday. She was 87 years-old.
Cardinale Passes Away
Cardinale’s death was confirmed by her longtime agent Laurent Savry. He revealed that she died in Nemours, France, which is close to Paris.
“She leaves us the legacy of a free and inspired woman both as a woman and as an artiste,” Savry said in a brief statement.
Cardinale was born in Tunisia on April 15, 1938. She was discovered at the age of 16, when she was picked out of a crowd to win a beauty contest. The prize for this victory was a trip to the Venice Film Festival. There, Cardinale was spotted by Italian producers, and the rest is history.
Cardinale was quickly offered a seven year contract by Franco Cristaldi, who owned the production company Vides. He would later become her husband. Cardinale had no interest in becoming an actress. However, she was pregnant at the time after a brutal rape, so she accepted the contract out of desperation.
“One day as I was walking home from school in Tunis a man in a car grabbed me and raped me and I became pregnant,” Carinale told Variety in 2017. “After that my mother and my sister stayed close to me. I gave birth in London, because in those days it would have been a scandal.”
“We pretended that my son was my little brother,” she added. “I didn’t want to become an actress; I did it so I could be independent.”
Cardinale’s Film Career
Cardinale made her debut in the 1958 Italian heist film Big Deal on Madonna Street, which was directed by Mario Monicelli. Success quickly followed, and Cardinale became a household name by the 1960s. Some of her most famous movies from that period include Austerlitz, 8½, The Leopard, The Pink Panther, Circus World, The Professionals, and Once Upon a Time in the West.
In that 2017 interview, Cardinale shocked her fans by revealing that she filmed two of her most famous movies, 8½ and The Leopard, at the very same time.
“Luchino wanted me dark-haired and Federico wanted me blonde-ish, so I had to change hair color every two weeks,” she recalled. “It was a magic moment for me. They were very different directors. Being on set with Luchino was like being in the theater; we had rehearsals and all that. With Federico there was no script, it was all improvised. Those two movies both really took my career to another level.”
By the time of her death, Cardinale had accumulated 128 film and television credits, according to IMBD. Her notable later work include 1993’s Son of the Pink Panther and 2014’s Effie Gray. Cardinale’s final screen appearance came in the 2022 Italian-Tunisian drama The Island of Forgiveness.
Cardinale’s Love Life
Cardinale was married to Cristaldi from 1966 until they divorced in 1975. She never married again. Meanwhile, throughout her career, Cardinale was rumored to have romances with leading men like Alain Delon, Marcello Mastroianni, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Steve McQueen. However, she rarely talked about her love life in interviews.
In one interview later in her life, Cardinale would only say that she was “stupid” to have rejected the advances of the legendary Marlon Brando.
“I never wanted to mix my private and public lives,” she explained. “No flirting. No flings.”
Despite not initially wanting to become an actress, Cardinale won many accolades throughout her career. Indeed, her awards include an honorary Golden Lion at the 1993 Venice Film Festival and an honorary Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival.
“If you want to practice this craft, you have to have inner strength,” Cardinale said in a 2014 interview. “Otherwise, you’ll lose your idea of who you are.”
At the Cannes Film Festival in 2017, Cardinale spoke out to offer some advice to young actresses.
“Never take on a role that will hurt you or make you sell out,” she warned. “And refuse to accept the awful caprices of certain directors or any form of professional blackmail. Yes, you need to fight!”
Cardinale is survived by two children. Rest in peace, Claudia Cardinale.