Claudia Cardinale is an Italian actress who was born on April 15, 1938. She has been in a number of well-known European movies from the 1960s and 1970s, acting in Italian, French, and English-language films.
Cardinale was born and raised in La Goulette, a neighborhood in Tunis. She won the “Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia” contest in 1957, which came with a trip to Italy. This quickly led to film contracts, thanks in large part to Franco Cristaldi, who was her mentor for many years and later married her.
Cardinale became one of Italy’s most famous actresses with her first part in Goha (1958) with Omar Sharif. She went on to star in movies like Rocco and His Brothers (1960), Girl with a Suitcase (1961), Cartouche (1962), The Leopard (1963), and Fellini’s 8½ (1963).
Cardinale became well-known in the US and UK after playing opposite David Niven in The Pink Panther in 1963. She was in Hollywood movies for a few years, including Blindfold (1965), Lost Command (1966), The Professionals (1966), Don’t Make Waves (1967) with Tony Curtis, The Hell with Heroes (1968), and the Sergio Leone epic Western Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), a joint US-Italian production. She was praised for her role as a former prostitute opposite Jason Robards, Charles Bronson, and Henry Fonda.
Cardinale has been a UNESCO goodwill ambassador for the Defense of Women’s Rights since March 2000. She has spoken out for women’s rights issues for many years. Cardinale was one of the 50 most attractive women in film history, according to the Los Angeles Times Magazine in February 2011.
No Comments