The Italian actress and star of the pink panther died at the age of 87

Claudia Cardinale, the Italian star of the Tunisian Italian Leopard star, 8 1/2 and pink panther, died at the age of 87.

She had a six decades career, rising to glory during the Golden Age of Italian cinema and was directed by the Great as Federico Fellini and Lucino Visconti.

The actress dies in France in France in the company of her children, according to her agent Laurent Saviri.

“She leaves us with the legacy of a free and inspired woman both as a woman and as an artist,” Savi told AFP agency.

Born in Tunisia by Sicilian parents in April 1938, Carron won a beauty pageant of 16, who saw her declared “the most beautiful Italian woman in Tunisia.”

The award was a trip to the Venice Film Festival, where directors and producers were addressed to join the film creation.

Subsequently, she described her unwillingness to give up her hope of becoming a teacher to “give this cinema something”, according to her father.

Her early career was marked by challenges. She took small roles as a teenager when she was raped by a man she didn’t know.

When she learned that she was seven months pregnant during the shoot, a mentor convinced her to give birth to a secret abroad in London.

For several years, she has introduced her son Patrick to people as her younger brother. She told the French newspaper Le Monde in 2017 that he was the reason for her film career because she wants to “make a living and be independent.”

As she grew up, speaking French, Arabic, and Sicilian dialect of her parents, her emphasis is regarded as unacceptable, and her voice was called by other Italian actors.

She was filmed in fame in 1963 when she appeared in Oscar -winning Fellini 8 1/2 And the drama of the epic period The Leopard, which has become a classic of Visconti.

As he filmed the movies at the same time, Cardinale traveled between Sicily and Rome and said she had to dye her hair once a week.

“Visconti wanted me a brunette with long hair. Fellini wanted me a blonde,” Carron said.

She worked in Hollywood in the 1960s, with the participation of Blake Edwards and Sergio Leone’s “Pink Panther” ever to the west and appearing with actors, including Henry Fonda and Charles Bronson.

During his time in the United States, Cardinale said he was pretending to be in connection with actor Rock Hudson to try to keep his homosexuality secret.

“At that time in America, if you are known to be gay, you can’t work in Hollywood,” she told Variety in 2017.

Critics praised her as “the embodiment of post -war European splendor.”

Reflecting on his career later, Cardinale recalled: “The best compliment I have ever received was from actor David Niven as he filmed the pink panther.

“He said,” Claudia, along with Spaghetti, you are the most large invention of Italy. “

After separating from the producer of the film Franco Crystaldi in the early 1970s, she began a lifetime relationship with the Neapolitan director Pasquale Squitriers, with whom he has a daughter, also baptized Claudia.

She presented herself at her 80s, appeared in the Swiss television series Bulle in 2020.

In 2000, Cardinale was named UNESCO Ambassador Goodwill as a sign of recognition for his intercession for women’s rights.

In 2002, she received an achievement for life at the Berlin Film Festival.

“I lived more than 150 life: a prostitute, a saint, a romantic, all kinds of woman, and it’s great to have this opportunity to change,” she said.

Italy’s Minister of Culture Alessandro Julie called her “one of the largest Italian actresses of all time,” embodies “Italian grace.”