CLAUDIA CARDINALE - Italy's answer to Brigitte Bardot

Claudia Cardinale at the Copacabana in Rio in Brazil in 1965. In the small photo: the French film star Brigitte Bardot, 1962.

Her life sounds like a fairy tale from a thousand and one nights. Alongside Gina Lollobrigida (†2023) and Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale is one of the biggest film stars from Italy - and the Italian answer to Brigitte Bardot.

The sacrament standing up: Sixty seconds of Italian eternity

Her gaze is legendary to this day. No other Hollywood star looks into the camera like the legendary Claudia Cardinale (84). She was considered the epitome of Italian beauty in the 60s and 70s. Yet her career in show business began by chance...

Claudia Cardinale, born Claude in Tunis in 1938, grew up in Tunisia with three siblings. her father is Sicilian, her mother a descendant of Sicilian emigrants. Cardinale's mother tongue is Sicilian, and she also speaks Arabic and French, as Tunisia was a French protectorate until 1956. Young Claude wants to become a teacher or a researcher.

After school one day she is approached by film people, including the future film star Omar Sharif. But Cardinale has no desire for film and acting and simply runs away. Shortly afterwards, she attends the beauty contest "Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia" together with her mother - as a spectator. "I was in the audience with my mother when suddenly someone put me on stage and put a wreath around me," Cardinale later recounts. The organiser of the show is the Unitalia film company. The main prize is a trip to the Venice Film Festival.

The breakthrough in Venice

Her appearance in Venice is making headlines. "When I arrived there, the bikini was not yet widespread in Italy. I wore a bikini and an Arab overgarment over it. All around me the cameras were clicking non-stop. Directors and producers asked me if I would make films. I said "no". On the plane back to Tunis, I read the headline: "Girl who refuses cinema"Cardinale recalls in an interview with the Schweizer Tagblatt.

Afterwards, everyone wants the girl who refuses to go to the cinema in the film. The then famous film producer Franco Cristaldi finally brings the young Cardinale to Italy. (This also turned into more in private, more about that at the very end). Although Cardinale spoke no Italian at the time and had never acted before, she had her first film role in 1958 in "Goha" alongside the later superstar Omar Sharif. Only a supporting role, but her start in a new life.

Cardinale learns Italian and studies acting. The famous director Luchino Visconti casts her in 1962 for the historical epic "The Leopard". The shooting " takes place parallel to the shooting of Federico Fellini's film "8 1/2". Both filmmakers want Cardinale. "They hated that they had to share me." Cardinale shuttles between sets and has to permanently dye her hair: Fellini wanted her blonde, Visconti, on the other hand, pitch black.

In the beginning, her smoky voice and her lack of language skills caused problems with the film producers, which is why she was initially dubbed. Until she meets Fellini. He insists that Cardinale speak Italian.

Everyone wanted to seduce the Cardinale

Her film partners are stars like Jean-Paul Belmondo, Marcello Mastroianni, Alain Delon and Burt Lancaster. "Fortunately, my personality was always strong enough not to be intimidated by a horde of wild men on the set," she says later. She turned down her admirers "by the dozen, the most persistent of whom was Marcello Mastroianni". Marlon Brando also tried in vain to seduce her in a hotel.

play me the song of death — **„**C'era una volta il West**"With this Western, dei Cardinale makes herself immortal**

In the first five years of her career alone, Cardinale made 25 films. "CC", as she was soon admiringly called in the film industry, was the Italian answer to France's curvy star BB, Brigitte Bardot. But unlike the Frenchwoman, Cardinale never shows everything on screen. "Because I've always found it more erotic when you leave a little room for the imagination. And only hint at certain things instead of showing everything."

"Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod": The western epic "C'era una volta il West" (original title) goes down in film history as a classic and makes Claudia Cardinale an international star as an actress.

The great love of Claudia Cardinale

After the separation from her partner and film producer, things became quieter around Claudia Cardinale in the 70s. Cardinale took on more television roles and acted in comedies. In 1993 she was awarded the Golden Lion for her life's work at the Venice Film Festival. The diva has made more than 100 films to date.

However, Cardinale has never married: "I never wanted to. I am an independent woman. She was also privately involved with her first film producer Franco Cristaldi until 1975. A difficult relationship. "I was like Cinderella, completely at the mercy of his generosity," Cardinale writes in her memoirs. The relationship got off to a difficult start anyway: the young Cardinale was unintentionally pregnant at the time, raped by a stranger, she writes in her memoirs.

claudia cardinale 2015 — **Italy's film legend 2015: Claudia Cardinale at the cinema festival in Miskolc in Hungary**
*^{_{Photo: Déri Miklós/CineFest Official, CC BY-SA 4.0}}*

Pregnant after rape

Her partner wants to hide the pregnancy from the public. A child does not fit the image of a film star, says the film producer. At his request, Cardinale therefore disowns her son: officially Patrick is her little brother, until she publicly admits to him years later. "Cristaldi was certainly a great producer, but on a private level ... better to pass over."

Her great love was always the director Pasquale Squitieri (†2017 ), she later wrote: "The only love of my life. With Pasquale I made up for a part of my life, my youth, my carefreeness, everything that had been denied me." The couple have a daughter together, Claudia. Cardinale met Squitieri in 1973. It was only two years later that she managed to get out of the contract with her ex's production company.

Today, Cardinale rarely makes headlines: "I have never hidden my age, I have never been and I will never be a diva. I am a normal woman."

...more stories from Italy!

BELLA VITA in Bella Italia

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