Italian cinema icon Claudia Cardinale has passed away

Italian actress Claudia Cardinale has died at the age of 87, AFP news agency reported Tuesday evening. Born in the Tunisian capital Tunis, Cardinale was an icon of Italian and international cinema in the 1960s.

She has appeared in drama films including Rocco ei suoi fratelli and Il gattopardo by Luchino Visconti, 8½ by Federico Fellini and films better known to the wider public such as the western Once Upon a Time in the West by Sergio Leone and the comedy The Pink Panther by Blake Edwards.

During her career, she won three David di Donatello Awards, Italy's most prestigious film awards. She also received a Golden Lion at the 1993 Venice Film Festival for her entire oeuvre.

Also read this profile of Claudia Cardinale from 2016

From sex symbol to role model

Claudia Cardinale: “The trick is to be strong inside and not conform to what others want to see in you.”

"I was a movie star from a very young age, but I don't deserve applause for that—it was fate," she wrote in her 2005 autobiography, "My Stars ." She was discovered after winning a beauty pageant in her native Tunisia, which earned her a trip to the Venice Film Festival. She made her film debut at the age of 20 in the French film Goha , opposite Omar Sharif.

In her heyday, Cardinale appeared in a number of Hollywood films, but she didn't appreciate all the glamour and therefore didn't thrive in the United States. In the latter part of her career, she appeared almost exclusively in European films.

Women's rights

Cardinale was raped at the very beginning of her career and secretly gave birth to a baby as a result. Only seven years later did she reveal that the child was hers. She has always championed women's rights ever since, doing so later in life as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. She also warned against the "terrible whims of certain directors and any form of professional blackmail" and advised young actresses to "never accept a role that hurts you or forces you to sell yourself."

According to her agent, "she leaves us a legacy of a free and inspired woman, both in her life as a woman and in her career as an artist." Cardinale died surrounded by her children in Nemours, just south of Paris, where she lived.

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