Claudia Cardinale, the luminous leading lady who defined Italian cinema in the 1960s with her striking beauty, has passed away in Nemours, France, at the age of 87. Celebrated by legendary directors like Luchino Visconti, Sergio Leone, and Federico Fellini, she was affectionately known as Italy’s “dream girl.”
Her agent, Laurent Savry, confirmed her death on Tuesday, though the cause was not disclosed. Ms. Cardinale had resided in Nemours, just south of Paris, during her later years.
Throughout a remarkable six-decade career in Europe, Ms. Cardinale graced the screen in more than 150 films. She also made her mark in Hollywood, notably starring in Blake Edwards’s iconic comedy, “The Pink Panther.”
Her memorable roles include embodying Marcello Mastroianni’s ideal woman in Fellini’s “8½,” portraying a determined bordello owner funding her lover’s audacious plan to build an Amazon opera house in Werner Herzog’s “Fitzcarraldo,” and playing a formidable widow gunslinger in Sergio Leone’s classic “Once Upon a Time in the West.”
Claudia Cardinale in an undated photo. She appeared in more than 150 movies during her six-decade career in Europe.
Massimo Benvegnù, an Italian film critic, observed that Ms. Cardinale, while often placed alongside contemporaries like Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida as a 1960s and ’70s Italian sex symbol, possessed a more accessible screen presence. “The stars at the time, Anita Ekberg, Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot and Jayne Mansfield — the ones known as the ‘maggiorate’ — were very curvaceous women,” he noted. “She was less curvaceous and more girl next door. She was more real.”
Interestingly, acting was not her initial teenage ambition, and for a period, she struggled with Italian, having grown up speaking French.
Born Claude Joséphine Rose Cardinale on April 15, 1938, in the French protectorate of Tunisia, her parents, Francesco Cardinale and Yolanda Greco, were Sicilian immigrants.
She was the eldest of four children, raised within a close-knit Sicilian community in Tunis, the capital. Her father worked as a technical engineer for the Tunisian railway, while her mother managed the household.
At 18, Claude entered a beauty pageant, partly orchestrated by her mother at the Italian Embassy in Tunisia. She was crowned the “most beautiful Italian girl in Tunisia,” winning a trip to the Venice Film Festival. There, she became a media sensation, widely photographed (reportedly because of her bikini, she later recalled). Despite having appeared in a few films already, she told reporters at the time that she harbored no aspirations to become an actress.
Ms. Cardinale in Italy in the 1950s. “In many films,” one Italian critic said, “she becomes an icon, something between reality and unreality.”
“After that, she was on the cover of all the Italian magazines, under headlines like ‘Here’s the girl who doesn’t want to make movies,’” Mr. Benvegnù recounted.
Upon returning to Tunisia, Claude initially resisted acting offers. During her teenage years, she endured a sexual assault by an acquaintance, which led to an abusive relationship and pregnancy. In 1957, she gave birth to her son, Patrick, in London. To protect her, her parents raised Patrick as her younger brother, only revealing the truth to him when he was eight years old.
That same year, Italian producer Franco Cristaldi signed her to his studio, Vides Cinematografica (now Cristaldifilm). It was then that Claude officially began her career as Claudia Cardinale.
Her breakthrough performance came in the 1958 comedic crime story “Big Deal on Madonna Street,” directed by Mario Monicelli. This launched a series of acclaimed films, including Fellini’s Oscar-winning “8½” and Visconti’s “The Leopard,” both released in 1963.
Ms. Cardinale with Federico Fellini in 1963 on the set of his “8½,” one of several major films she made in quick succession. Ms. Cardinale with Sergio Leone during the making of his 1968 spaghetti western, “Once Upon a Time in the West.”
“Then she just became known as ‘Italy’s girlfriend,’ the girl of your dreams,” Mr. Benvegnù added.
Ms. Cardinale also earned her first prestigious acting honor, Italy’s Nastro d’Argento award for best actress, for her role as Mara in Luigi Comencini’s commercially and critically successful 1964 film, “La Ragazza di Bube” (“Bebo’s Girl”). In the film, set at the end of World War II, Mara is a Tuscan peasant girl who falls in love with a young partisan, played by George Chakiris, forced into hiding after being accused of a double homicide.
She married Mr. Cristaldi in Las Vegas in 1966. However, her daughter, Ms. Squitieri, stated that her mother never considered the marriage “official,” despite Mr. Cristaldi giving his last name to her son.
In Fellini’s “8½,” set in a luxurious spa, Ms. Cardinale portrayed an actress and muse (also named Claudia) for the protagonist, director Guido Anselmi (Marcello Mastroianni). He sees her as the embodiment of his ideal woman, envisioning her as the ingénue of a science fiction film he plans to create.
Elegantly dressed, she stands with her left hand on her hip and her right arm resting on some kind of flowered surface, as depicted in a scene from “8½.”
“You are one of the girls who passes out the healing water,” he tells her upon her arrival at the spa. “She is beautiful, both young and ancient, a child and yet already a woman, authentic and radiant. There’s no doubt that she’s his salvation.”
This portrayal resonated deeply with audiences, influencing how they perceived Ms. Cardinale, according to Vito Zigarrio, a film critic and historian at the University of Rome and a Venice Film Festival organizer. “In many films she becomes an icon, something between reality and unreality,” he noted, “and this ambiguity between fantasy and reality makes the character very intense.”
In Visconti’s epic period drama “The Leopard,” she captivated audiences as a young Sicilian debutante, winning the affection of both a soldier (Alain Delon) and his uncle (Burt Lancaster). In her 2005 autobiography, “Mes Étoiles” (“My Stars”), co-written with Danièle Georget, she shared, “You can learn beauty. Visconti taught me how to be beautiful. He taught me to cultivate mystery, without which, he said, there cannot be real beauty.”
Ms. Cardinale showcased her comedic talent in 1964, making her debut with an American director, Blake Edwards. In “The Pink Panther,” she played a princess who loses a valuable jewel, sharing the screen with stars like Peter Sellers, David Niven, and Robert Wagner.
Ms. Cardinale starred with David Niven in Blake Edwards’s “The Pink Panther” (1964), a comedy with a cast that also included Peter Sellers and Robert Wagner. It was the first film she made for an American director.
Another pivotal role arrived in Sergio Leone’s 1968 spaghetti western, “Once Upon a Time in the West.” She portrayed a New Orleans prostitute who travels to the Southwest to marry, only to find her husband murdered by bandits upon her arrival.
As the sole female character amidst a cast of male antiheroes, including Charles Bronson and Henry Fonda, Ms. Cardinale “was able to hold her own with these extremely strong, major actors, and conveying a sense of interiority that is quite palpable,” remarked Jay Weissberg, an American film critic based in Rome.
Her portrayal of rugged independence in that film became a hallmark of her career, as observed by Antonio Monda, artistic director of the Rome Film Festival. “There was something free about her, a strong personality that would never be tamed,” he stated. “She was strongly independent.”
Ms. Cardinale in 1969 with her husband, the Italian screenwriter and producer Franco Cristaldi. They divorced around 1975.
Ms. Cardinale later divorced Mr. Cristaldi around 1975 to begin a relationship with Pasquale Squitieri, an independent filmmaker known for his right-leaning views. “In a sense she wanted to emancipate herself,” Mr. Monda explained. “She didn’t want to be thought of as only the product of a great producer.”
In subsequent interviews, Ms. Cardinale revealed that her relationship with Mr. Cristaldi had been one of complete control. She claimed he dictated nearly every aspect of her life and retained most of her earnings from American film projects. “I was just an employee, like an office worker,” she told Variety.
The relationship grew strained, and her affair with Mr. Squitieri reportedly led to their effective blackballing from the Italian film industry. She relocated to France to revitalize her career, often taking supporting roles there.
Ms. Cardinale collaborated with Mr. Squitieri on nearly a dozen films. They had a daughter in 1979 and remained together for 40 years, until his passing in 2017.
“It was an unconventional relationship,” Ms. Squitieri said, highlighting that her parents lived together until 1989 and maintained an exceptionally close bond thereafter.
A black-and-white photo of Ms. Cardinale and Pasquale Squitieri from 1978 shows the couple standing close together, smiling faintly, with his arm around her neck.
She also featured in the 1977 all-star television mini-series “Jesus of Nazareth,” directed by Franco Zeffirelli, playing an adulteress facing the threat of stoning.
Early in her career, Ms. Cardinale drew inspiration from Brigitte Bardot, her co-star in the 1971 French western comedy “Les Pétroleuses” (“The Legend of Frenchie King”), directed by Christian-Jaque. This film parodied Hollywood clichés, featuring all-female shootouts and a lively fistfight between the two leading ladies.
“Bardot was her idol,” Ms. Squitieri shared. “Everyone was expecting a big rivalry between them but they actually became very good friends.”
In Werner Herzog’s 1982 film “Fitzcarraldo,” Ms. Cardinale, though in a supporting role opposite Klaus Kinski as the title character, was crucial to the narrative. She played a brothel madame whose unwavering belief in her lover’s dream of building an opera house in the Amazon fueled his eccentric endeavor to drag a steamship over a mountain.
Klaus Kinski and Ms. Cardinale on location in Peru on the set of “Fitzcarraldo” (1981). Werner Herzog, the film’s director, is in the foreground.
“Miss Cardinale is not onscreen as long as one might wish, but she not only lights up her role, she also lights up Mr. Kinski,” Vincent Canby wrote in The Times, praising her ability to “transform Mr. Kinski into a genuinely charming screen presence.”
The film garnered the top award at the Cannes Film Festival, earning Ms. Cardinale new admirers and keeping her on the radar of film producers and casting directors for years to come.
In her later years, Ms. Cardinale resided with her son and daughter in Nemours. There, she established a foundation dedicated to supporting arts that highlight women and environmental issues. In 2000, UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization, honored her as a goodwill ambassador “in recognition of her commitment to improving the status of women and girls through education, as well as promoting and affirming their rights.”
Ms. Cardinale and her daughter, Claudia Squitieri, are pictured at the opening ceremony of the 2004 Marrakech Film Festival, where Ms. Cardinale was honored.
Further details regarding her survivors were not immediately available.
In 2023, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in collaboration with Cinecittà, Italy’s national film company, hosted a 23-film retrospective celebrating Ms. Cardinale’s career.
Although she no longer commanded leading roles as she aged, Ms. Cardinale maintained a consistent acting presence, particularly in France, her adopted country.
“My mother was very adaptive,” Ms. Squitieri observed. “She is not a precious woman who has great needs, who is capricious because she is a star. She was always very humble in her requests. She always, always, always stopped to sign autographs. She detested the idea of bodyguards; she always wanted to be as close as she could to people. She felt very blessed by her luck.”