Claudia Cardinale Dies at 87: Farewell to a Cinema Icon
Her career began almost by chance in a short film that screened in Berlin in 1958
The world of cinema mourns Claudia Cardinale, who passed away on Tuesday in Nemours, near Paris, at the age of 87. Her agent Laurent Savry announced the news to the AFP agency.
An iconic face of the silver screen, Cardinale starred in some of the absolute masterpieces of Italian cinema: from Federico Fellini's 8½ to Luchino Visconti's The Leopard, and Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West. Alongside divas like Sophia Loren and Anna Magnani, she was one of the undisputed protagonists of the golden age of Italian Cinema, captivating international audiences in the 1960s.
Another great icon of Italian Cinema has left us
With over 130 films to her credit and numerous theatrical experiences, Cardinale worked tirelessly from her youth until her final years. Throughout her career, she won three David di Donatello awards for best actress and was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 1993 at the Venice Film Festival.
Born in Tunis on April 15, 1938 to an emigrated Sicilian family, she initially spoke French, Arabic, and Sicilian dialect, learning Italian only later. After her studies, she was noticed by a French director who cast her in a short film presented at the Berlin Film Festival in 1958. In the same year, she made her cinema debut in Goha alongside a young Omar Sharif, presented at Cannes.
"I was a very young star, but it was destiny that decided for me," she wrote in her autobiography. A destiny that consecrated her as one of the most beloved and immortal actresses of Italian Cinema.