When she was only 19, Claudia Cardinale won a competition for the Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia, and the movie career that would follow over the next two decades would create millions of fans who would agree with that prize. Cardinale’s beauty helped make her a star, but it was her elusive charm and mysterious nature in films like “The Leopard,” “8 ½,” “The Pink Panther,” “Once Upon a Time in the West,” and so many more that made her one of the most recognizable faces of the ‘50s and ‘60s. She passed in Nemours, France this week, one of the few remaining superstars of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
After getting the attention of Jacques Baratier through her appearance in a short film that premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, Cardinale was cast in a minor role in her debut: 1958’s “Goha,” directed by Baratier and starring Omar Sharif. The film premiered in competition at Cannes. In the late ‘50s, Cardinale signed a seven-year contract with the Italian production company Vides, which was run by Franco Cristaldi, who Cardinale would actually be married to from 1966 to 1975.
Her breakthrough came in the 1958 comedy “Big Deal on Madonna Street,” which was a big hit in Italy, and she worked consistently from then on really. Highlights of this era include “Il bell’Antonio,” “Austerlitz,” “Rocco and His Brothers,” “Silver Spoon Set,” and “Time of Indifference.” Her career really took off in 1963, when she appeared in both “The Leopard” and “8 ½,” two of the most acclaimed Italian films of all time. “8 ½” actually marked the first time that Cardinale could use her own voice—she was always dubbed before that. In the ‘60s, she was often considered the most popular film star in Italy, but she also became a notable presence in Hollywood, appearing opposite Rock Hudson in “Blindfold” and Anthony Quinn in “Lost Command.” One of her most timeless roles came in 1968 in Sergio Leone’s legendary “Once Upon a Time in the West.”
Much more than a pretty face, Claudia Cardinale worked almost non-stop from her launch in the late ‘50s to her death over six decades later, appearing in a French Netflix original film called “Rogue City” as recently as 2020. She was a legend who never undervalued the work it took to be a legend, giving notable performances well into seventies, including in 2012’s “Gebo and the Shadow” and “The Artist and the Model.” She worked from Fellini to opposite Emma Thompson in 2014’s “Effie Gray,” a connection to the past of European cinema that has now sadly been lost.
The passing of Claudia Cardinale was an internationally recognized event this week. French President Emmanel Macron wrote on X, “Claudia Cardinale embodied a freedom, a vision and a talent that contributed decisively to the works of the greatest, from Rome to Hollywood, up to Paris, which she chose as her homeland. We French will always carry this Italian and world star in our hearts, for the eternity of cinema”. An Italian outlet named Ansa has a wonderful quote from the star about what mattered to her: “I lived the profession of cinema, not to escape from life but to live it better than I lived real life, at least with more sincerity and awareness”.