Overview
- Cardinale died in Nemours, south of Paris, at age 87, with her children present, and public funeral services in Paris are planned with the date to be announced.
- French President Emmanuel Macron praised her freedom, vision and talent in a message on X, as Cannes officials and UNESCO also issued remembrances.
- Born in Tunis to Sicilian parents, she rose to international fame in 1963 with Fellini’s 8½ and Visconti’s The Leopard and later starred in Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West and Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo.
- Fellini insisted she use her own low, raspy voice in 8½, transforming a trait once dubbed over into a defining part of her screen identity.
- She later revealed she was raped at 16 in Tunis and that the resulting pregnancy led to her son Patrick, and her private life included a secret 1966 marriage to producer Franco Cristaldi and a 25-year partnership with director Pasquale Squitieri, with whom she had a daughter.