It was no surprise, when Federico Fellini cast Claudia Cardinale in 8½ (1963), that she played the dream girl of his alter ego on screen. By that time, Cardinale, who has died aged 87, had already emerged as a major Italian film star. In the same year, she appeared as the ravishing Sicilian courted by Alain Delon’s handsome Garibaldi officer in Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), Luchino Visconti’s great adaptation of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel.
Those who have seen the full-length version of the film will cherish the memory of Cardinale’s waltz with Burt Lancaster’s ageing prince. The film won Visconti the Palme d’Or at Cannes. By the end of the decade, Cardinale had become an international success, winning more praise by playing the only female role in Sergio Leone’s most ambitious western, Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). She was cast as a former prostitute from New Orleans newly married to a good-hearted pioneer who has bought a piece of land, only to find she is a widow by the time she arrives to join him.
