Claudia Cardinale, a glamorous symbol of post-war Italian cinema who enjoyed a long and varied acting career on film and in the theatre, has died at age 87, according to AFP and other French media. Raised in Tunisia to a family of Sicilian origin, Cardinale’s introduction to the movie world came in 1957 after she won a beauty contest in Tunis and was rewarded with a trip to the Venice film festival.
Her voice had to be dubbed for her first Italian screen roles because she had grown up in a family where Sicilian dialect was spoken and had been educated at a French-speaking school. Her early career was also complicated by a secret pregnancy which she said was the result of an abusive relationship.
