Marrakech – The world just bid farewell to Claudia Cardinale, the Italian screen icon who died at the age of 87, leaving behind more than six decades of unforgettable cinema and timeless allure.
Born in La Goulette, a seaside suburb of Tunis, to a Sicilian family, Cardinale grew up speaking French before destiny whisked her into the spotlight.
In 1957, a local beauty contest handed her a ticket to the Venice Film Festival, and just like that, her story with Italian cinema began.
At first, her thick accent meant her voice was dubbed. But talent has a way of cutting through barriers. By 1963, she was a star, dazzling audiences in Federico Fellini’s “8½” and Luchino Visconti’s “The Leopard.”
Hollywood soon called, and she graced screens worldwide in films like “The Pink Panther” and Sergio Leone’s epic “Once Upon a Time in the West.”
The 1970s brought heartbreak. Her marriage to producer Franco Cristaldi collapsed, and with it, her career nearly stalled.
But Franco Zeffirelli stepped in, casting her in the 1977 TV masterpiece “Jesus of Nazareth,” reigniting her light.
From there, she worked with directors like Werner Herzog and Marco Bellocchio, proving that resilience was part of her DNA.
No matter how far she traveled, Cardinale never broke ties with Tunisia. She starred in “A Trip to La Goulette” (1996,) a celebration of cultural coexistence, later followed by “Tabarka Lovers” (2004) and “The Island of Forgiveness” (2022.)
Tunisia was not just where she was born, it was the compass she kept returning to.
And Cardinale was never afraid to defy expectations. She famously met Pope Paul VI wearing a short skirt. In 2022, a book about her fittingly carried the title: “Claudia Cardinale. The Unconquerable.”
Her accolades matched her legend. At the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival, she accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award, where she stated, “I’ve lived more than 150 lives through the roles I’ve played. The beauty of cinema is that it let me be a different woman each time.”
