"Claudia Cardinale was part of the great wave of Italian movie stars whose postwar career took them from Europe to Hollywood; these included Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida and Monica Vitti, who the American film industry prized not merely for their beauty but also for their mystery: an exotic feline allure and sense of toughness and survival, and even tragedy. But Cardinale perhaps had something her contemporaries didn't: a kind of simplicity and frankness to go with the sensual allure."
"She often played opposite Alain Delon, whose own beauty complemented almost merged with hers. In Visconti's early masterpiece Rocco and His Brothers from 1960, Cardinale played Ginetta, engaged to one of Rocco's brothers from the uncouth south and her parents are openly hostile when their son-in-law's entire family make their chaotic appearance. She was radiant in Luchino Visconti's The Leopard in 1963, as wealthy merchant's daughter Angelica on whom Burt Lancaster's Prince bestows his frank admiration even as she is engaged to his nephew Tancredi."
"but the most pivotal moment of Cardinale's early career was to be cast by Federico Fellini in his cinephile meta comedy 8. She played the up-and-coming screen star whom Marcello Mastroianni's creatively blocked movie director impulsively decides is his ideal woman who must redeem his emotionally wrecked leading character but who tells him this figure is incapable of real love. It is perhaps a subconscious, subtextual joke in 8 that her surname riffs on cardinal importanc"
Claudia Cardinale emerged among postwar Italian movie stars who moved from Europe to Hollywood, valued for beauty and a mysterious, exotic allure that conveyed toughness and tragedy. Cardinale combined sensuality with simplicity and frankness. She frequently co-starred with Alain Delon, their beauties complementing each other. In Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers (1960) she played Ginetta, engaged to a man from the uncouth south, facing her parents' hostility toward his chaotic family. In The Leopard (1963) she portrayed Angelica, a wealthy merchant's daughter admired by Burt Lancaster's prince. Fellini cast her in 8 as the up-and-coming screen star deemed an 'ideal woman' who cannot return real love.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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