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Claudia Cardinale, Transnational Icon of European Cinema, Dies at 87

President Macron led French tributes to the star of 8½, The Leopard and Once Upon a Time in the West, underscoring her cross-border legacy.

Overview

  • Cardinale died at her home in Nemours, near Paris, at age 87, with family present, according to ANSA.
  • Across roughly six decades she appeared in well over 100 films, working with Fellini, Visconti, Leone and Herzog and rising to international stardom in 1963.
  • Fellini required her to use her own low, raspy voice in 8½, ending years of dubbing and turning her timbre into a defining trait.
  • She later disclosed she was raped at 16 in Tunis and that her son Patrick was long presented publicly as her younger brother to protect her image.
  • Producer Franco Cristaldi tightly managed her early career and married her in secret in 1966 before their separation in the mid-1970s; she then shared a 25-year personal and artistic partnership with director Pasquale Squitieri, with whom she had a daughter.