Claudia Cardinale, Star of The Leopard and 8½, Dies at 87

Italian actress Claudia Cardinale, a defining face of European cinema in the 1960s and 1970s, has died at 87 in Nemours, France, her longtime agent said Tuesday. The news was confirmed by AFP and reported by outlets worldwide. Cardinale rose to international prominence with a string of iconic collaborations and remained a symbol of unvarnished screen presence across several decades.

Cardinale appeared in more than 100 films and television productions, with enduring fame for her performances in Federico Fellini’s 8½ and Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard, both released in 1963. Born in Tunis to Sicilian parents who had emigrated to North Africa, she began her movie career at 17 after winning a local beauty contest. The contest helped bring her to the Venice Film Festival, where she attracted the attention of Italian cinema and quickly became one of Europe’s most sought-after stars. Cardinale has recalled that her entry into acting was something she viewed as an accident, yet it opened a career that would span generations and continents.

Her breakthrough came with a string of collaborations with major directors. In 1963 she played the young, impetuous Angelica Sedara in Visconti’s The Leopard, a role that cemented her international status, and she starred opposite Marcello Mastroianni in Fellini’s 8½, which encapsulated a mood of artistic experimentation that defined the era. Cardinale’s beauty and magnetic presence helped her transcend language barriers, and she quickly became one of Europe’s most visible screen presences. She also appeared in Sergio Leone’s Western epic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), further widening her international appeal. Her early biography tells of a sensuous, dark-haired leading lady who often spoke Italian with a French accent, leading to dubbing in several of her early films.

Her Hollywood journey carried both opportunities and limits. Cardinale appeared in the 1965 thriller Blindfold with Rock Hudson and in Don’t Make Waves (1967) with Tony Curtis, but she preferred not to abandon European cinema. She later cited The Professionals (1966), directed by Richard Brooks and co-starring Burt Lancaster, as her best Hollywood work, noting that an exclusivity contract she was asked to sign would have restricted her to American productions. In interviews she said Hollywood studios wanted to lock her in, but she refused to accept a European actress could be confined by a single studio system. The approach allowed her to pursue a broader, transatlantic career without sacrificing European roles.

Cardinale’s talent earned her industry recognition beyond acting. She received a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Film Festival, an honor she accepted nearly 40 years after her first screen appearance. In 2000, she was named a goodwill ambassador for UNESCO, focusing on the defense of women’s rights and education. Her career also included long-running collaborations with Franco Cristaldi, whom she married in 1966 and later separated from in 1975, and with Italian director Pasquale Squitieri, with whom she had a second child. Cardinale’s personal life paralleled the breadth of her professional work, spanning European art cinema, mainstream Hollywood fare and humanitarian advocacy.

Her work with Fellini and Visconti, in particular, remains widely cited for its blend of sensuality, dignity and psychological depth. Cardinale often played complex women who navigated social constraints, personal desire and shifting power dynamics, a combination that helped define the era’s cinematic language. Her voice, originally dubbed in some early films due to her French accent, did not diminish her influence; she became a symbol of an era when European cinema could compete with Hollywood on stylistic and thematic terms.

Beyond the screen, Cardinale spoke about living multiple lives through her characters, a sentiment she expressed as a way of appreciating the breadth of her career. “They gave me everything,” she once said, reflecting on a life that produced “more than 150 lives” through cinema, and a sense of gratitude for the opportunities to play diverse roles across continents.

As the film world mourns her passing, Cardinale’s legacy endures in the canonical films that shaped postwar European cinema and in the continued re-evaluation of performances that cross national boundaries. Her work in The Leopard, 8½ and Once Upon a Time in the West remains a touchstone for students and fans of the period, while her later career and humanitarian work illustrate a commitment to using cinema as a platform for broader cultural and social change.

In commemorations that followed her death, obituaries highlighted Cardinale’s rare combination of star power and artistic seriousness, a reminder of her status as a leading light of global cinema. Her career offers a lens into a pivotal era when European filmmakers forged a new language for cinema that could captivate audiences worldwide without conceding artistic ambition.

Images from Cardinale’s life accompany this retrospective, reflecting her early breakout in the 1960s, her enduring presence across decades, and her later years as a global ambassador for culture and human rights. The film community continues to celebrate her contributions to screen art and to the cultural exchange that defined an era.

In noting Cardinale’s passing, observers recalled the breadth of her career—from her early triumphs in Tunis and at the Venice festival to the magnetic performances that defined European cinema for a generation. She leaves behind two children and a filmography that spans more than a decade of cinema’s most transformative years, along with a legacy that continues to inspire new generations of actors and filmmakers around the world.