Claudia Cardinale: 40 Photos Celebrating the Italian Cinema and Style Siren
Claudia Cardinale has died at the age 87: The Italian diva par excellence, the face of ’60s Italian cinema and beyond, considered both the girl next door and a figure of mass sex appeal, and an enduring style icon. Across over 150 screen and theatrical roles, Cardinale was celebrated for her work in films by the Italian director greats, from Luchino Visconti, to Sergio Leone, and Federico Fellini, hitting it big in Hollywood in Blake Edwards’s classic The Pink Panther and Leone’s Once Upon A Time In the West. Beside Sophia Loren and Anna Magnani, Cardinale was a symbol of Italian cinema’s golden age.
The Tunisian-born actor’s death was confirmed to Agence France-Presse on Tuesday September 23 by her agent. In recent years, Cardinale had been living in Nemours, south of Paris.
Across her six decade-long career, Cardinale won three David di Donatello Awards (Italy’s equivalent of the Oscars), and received an honorary Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival in 1993. A restoration of her 1964 film The Magnificent Cuckold was screened as part of the Venice Classics section at the 2025 Venice Film Festival.
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Thinking back on her legacy, Cardinale once recalled: “The best compliment I ever got was from actor David Niven while filming The Pink Panther. He said: ‘Claudia, along with spaghetti, you’re Italy”s greatest invention.’”
Despite representing the Italian cinematic epoch, Claude Joséphine Rose Cardinale was born and raised in Tunis, Tunisia to a family of Sicilian descent, and grew up speaking French, Arabic, and the Sicilian dialect. She took up Italian as an adult. (Some of her first major films had to be dubbed because her Italian wasn’t deemed good enough). After winning the “Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia” competition in 1957, she was sent to the Venice Film Festival. Bikini-clad on the lido, she received several offers of roles.
She took some small parts, rejected more, and returned to Tunisia to her family—unconcerned with the cinema “thing.” As a teenager, she was raped and became pregnant. She gave birth to her son Patrick in 1957 in London, and at the advice of her parents, pretended he was her brother. She was signed to the the film studio of Italian producer Franco Cristaldi—who she later married—and became known as Claudia Cardinale.
Cardinale slowly began building up stellar parts, in movies like Mario Monicelli’s Big Deal on Madonna Street and Bolognini’s Golden Leopard-winning Il bell’Antonio. Her big break came when she appeared in Fellini’s Oscar-winning 8 1/2 and the epic Visconti classic The Leopard. The Pink Panther quickly followed to propel her to global stardom.
Taking up temporary residence in Hollywood, Cardinale starred as John Wayne and Rita Hayworth’s daughter in Circus World, and took on her most remembered English language role as a former sex worker in Once Upon a Time in the West with Henry Fonda.
Cardinale and Cristaldi divorced in 1975, and she began a life-long relationship with director Pasquale Squitieri. They were together until his death in 2017 and shared a daughter, also named Claudia. Cristaldi and Cardinale worked on movies together including I guappi, Corleone Claretta, and Atto di dolore. Often, Squitieri directed her in stage productions. Acting until late in life, one of Cardinale’s last credits was in the Swiss television series Bulle, in 2020.
Outside of cinema, Cardinale had a short career as a disco singer in the 1970s, and she was named UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 2000, in recognition of her commitment to the causes and protection of women and girls.
Her elegant, sensual, and complex acting tough was only complemented by her love of fashion. On screen, she was dressed in glamorous gowns and après-ski looks by Yves Saint Laurent (his first film costume credit) for The Pink Panther. The late, great designer Giorgio Armani made her his muse—she would often choose Armani for her red carpet appearances, and the two became life-long friends.
