Claudia Cardinale

Claudia Cardinale (born 15 April 1938) is an Italian film actress. She appeared in some of the most acclaimed European films of the 1960s and 1970s, mainly Italian or French, but also in several English films. Born and raised in Tunis, Cardinale won the "Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia" competition in 1957, the prize being a trip to Italy which quickly led to film contracts, thanks above all to the involvement of Franco Cristaldi, who acted as her mentor for a number of years and later married her. After making her debut in a minor role with Omar Sharif in Goha (1958), Cardinale became one of the best known actresses in Italy after roles in films such as Rocco and His Brothers (1960), Girl with a Suitcase (1961), The Leopard (1963), Cartouche (1963) and Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963). From 1963, Cardinale became known in the United States and Britain following her role in The Pink Panther opposite David Niven. For several years she appeared in Hollywood films such as Blindfold (1965) opposite Rock Hudson, Lost Command (1966), The Professionals (1966), The Hell with Heroes (1968) and the Sergio Leone epic western Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), a joint US-Italian production, in which she was praised for her role as a former prostitute opposite Jason Robards and Henry Fonda. Jaded with the Hollywood film industry and not wanting to become a cliché, Cardinale returned to Italian and French cinema, and garnered the David di Donatello for Best Actress award for her roles in Il giorno della civetta (1968) and as a prostitute alongside Alberto Sordi in A Girl in Australia (1971). In 1974, Cardinale met director Pasquale Squitieri, who would become her husband, and she frequently featured in his films, including I guappi (1974), Corleone (1978) and Claretta (1984), the latter of which won her the Nastro d'Argento Award for Best Actress. In 1982 she played the love interest of Klaus Kinski in Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, who raises the funds to buy a steamship in South America. In 2010, Cardinale received the Actress Award at the 47th Antalya "Golden Orange" International Film Festival for her performance as an elderly Italian woman who takes in a young Turkish exchange student in Signora Enrica. Outspoken on women's rights causes over the years, Cardinale has been a UNESCO goodwill ambassador for the Defense of Women's Rights since March 2000. In February 2011 the Los Angeles Times Magazine named Cardinale among the 50 most beautiful women in film history. Early life Claudia Cardinale was born Claude Joséphine Rose Cardinale in La Goulette, a neighborhood of Tunis, French protectorate of Tunisia on 15 April 1938. Her mother, Yolande Greco, was born in Tunisia to Sicilian emigrants from Trapani. Her maternal grandparents had a small shipbuilding firm in Trapani but later settled in La Goulette, where there was a large Italian community. Her father, Francesco Cardinale, was a railway worker, born in Gela. Her native languages were French, Tunisian Arabic, and the Sicilian language of her parents. She did not learn to speak Italian until she had already begun to be cast for Italian films. Cardinale was educated at the Saint-Joseph-de-l'Apparition school of Carthage which she attended along with her younger sister Blanche. She then studied at the Paul Cambon School, where she graduated with the intention of becoming a teacher. As a teenager she was described as "silent, weird, and wild", and like other girls of her generation was fascinated by Brigitte Bardot who came to prominence in the 1956 film And God Created Woman, directed by Roger Vadim. Career Cardinale's first film work was participating, along with classmates, in a short film by French director René Vautier, Anneaux d'or, successfully presented at the Berlin Film Festival. The film made her a minor local celebrity, and led to her being spotted by Jacques Baratier who offered her a minor role in Goha. She accepted it reluctantly after Baratier explained he wanted a Tunisian actress rather than an Italian to star in the main role opposite the Egyptian actor Omar Sharif. The appearance nonetheless marked her feature film debut. The turning point came in 1957 during the Italian Cinema Week in Tunis when she won a competition for the "Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia", with a trip to the Venice Film Festival as first prize. After being spotted by several film producers at the event, she was invited to study at the Experimental Cinematography Center in Rome under Tina Lattanzi. She attended briefly as, despite her extremely photogenic looks, she had trouble with her acting assignments (partly owing to her difficulties with the Italian language). She left at the end of her first term and decided to return home, earning herself a cover story in the popular weekly Epoca triggered by her unexpected decision to turn her back on a career as a film star. Back in Tunis, however, Cardinale discovered unexpectedly that she was pregnant, the result of what she later described as a "terrible" relationship with a Frenchman, some ten years her senior, which began when she was only 17 and lasted for about a year. On this discovery, he wanted her to have an abortion but she decided to keep the child.[19] She solved her problems by signing a seven-year exclusive contract with Franco Cristaldi's production company Vides. Cristaldi largely managed her early career, and she was married to him from 1966 until 1975. Personal life Claudia Cardinale met Italian film producer Franco Cristaldi in 1958. She married him in Atlanta in 1966 but they divorced in 1975. The couple had become increasingly detached and he wanted to remarry without any ties. Although Cardinale did not believe the Atlanta marriage had any status in Italy, she consented to his request. As a result, Cristaldi married Zeudi Araya and had no further contractual relationships with Cardinale. Cardinale has lived with Pasquale Squitieri, an Italian film director, since 1975. She has two children: Patrick, who was born illegitimately when she was 19 and later adopted by Cristaldi, and Claudia, whom she had with Squitieri. She is fluent in Sicilian, Arabic, French, Italian, English, and Spanish.