Overview

• French outlet Sud Ouest reported she died Tuesday in Nemours, near Paris, at age 87, with her children by her side, citing agent Laurent Savry.
• Born in La Goulette near Tunis on April 15, 1938, she grew up speaking French, Arabic and Sicilian before breaking through in Italian cinema.
• She became a defining screen presence in works such as Visconti’s The Leopard, Fellini’s 8½, Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West and Blake Edwards’ The Pink Panther.
• Festival honors included Venice Best Actress in 1984 for Claretta, a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement in 1993 and Berlin’s Golden Bear in 2002.
• A longtime partner of director Pasquale Squitieri, she appeared in roughly a dozen of his films from 1974 to 2011, and she was often dubbed early in her career until 8½.