Claudia Cardinale
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| Beautiful, curvaceous, husky-voiced Italian actress groomed to be her country's successor to sex symbols Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida, but who failed to reach the pinnacle attained by her predecessors. A teenaged beauty-contest winner who took acting lessons in Rome, she debuted in 1958's Les Noces Venetienne but made a much bigger impression in the international success Big Deal on Madonna Street later that year. Her career was orchestrated by producer Franco Cristaldi, who later married her (just as Carlo Ponti had groomed, then wed Loren). A prolific screen player, Cardinale starred or costarred in dozens of films-including some of the most distinguished Italian productions of the 1960s, such as Rocco and His Brothers (1960), The Leopard, 8 (both 1963), Cartouche (1964), and, after her American sojourn, Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). Cardinale never mastered the English language to the degree that Loren did, which may account for her inability to make the same impression on U.S. audiences. Her American-made (or American financed) films include The Pink Panther, Circus World (both 1964), Blindfold, Lost Command, The Professionals (all 1966), Don't Make Waves (1967), The Hell With Heroes (1968), and A Fine Pair (1969). Unlike many European sexpots of the 1960s, Cardinale remained active throughout the 1970s and 1980s, evolving gracefully into character roles. Her later films include The Red Tent (1971), Conversation Piece (1975), Escape to Athena (1979), The Gift (1982), Fitzcarraldo (also 1982, and one of her best, as the woman who never gives up on the dreamer played by Klaus Kinski), Henry IV (1984), History (1986), A Man in Love (1987, as Greta Scacchi's mother), and, almost thirty years after her appearance in the original, Son of the Pink Panther (1993). |