\n<\/p>\n
\n\tClaudia Cardinale, the Italian movie star known for her captivating performances in The Leopard<\/em>, 8\u00bd<\/em>, and Once Upon a Time in the West<\/em>, has died at the age of 87.<\/p>\n \n\tCardinale died in Nemours, France, with her children by her side. Her agent, Laurent Savry, confirmed the news to Agence France-Presse\u00a0on Tuesday. The cause of death was not immediately available. <\/p>\n \n\tBorn in Tunis on April 15, 1938, to Francesco Cardinale and Yolanda Greco, both Sicilian immigrants, Cardinale was raised speaking French, Arabic, and Sicilian dialect. At 18, she was crowned the \u201cMost Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia\u201d at a beauty contest and won a trip to the Venice Film Festival, where she enthralled Italian media and various filmmakers. <\/p>\n \n\tWhen she was a teenager, she was raped by a film producer and became pregnant, she said in a French magazine. The identity of the father was never revealed. In 1957, she gave birth to her son, Patrick, in London. Needing to support her newborn, Cardinale signed a lengthy contract with Italian producer Franco Cristaldi, who would later become her husband in 1966 (divorced in 1975). Under his management, her life was heavily monitored and her son was raised as her younger brother, a secret that was hidden from him until he was eight years old.<\/p>\n \n\tThroughout her prolific career, Cardinale starred in more than 150 films, featuring across genres from comedies and crime dramas to sweeping romances and period films. For many, she would become known for her starring role in Federico Fellini\u2019s Oscar-winning masterpiece 8\u00bd<\/em> and Luchino Visconti\u2019s screen adaption of the historical drama, The Leopard<\/em>. Cardinale also featured in Hollywood films, including Blake Edwards\u2019s comedy hit The Pink Panther<\/em> with Peter Sellers.<\/p>\n \t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n \n\tCardinale would continue to focus on collaborating with European filmmakers, appearing in Sergio Leone\u2019s western Once Upon a Time in the West <\/em>in 1968 and the 1982 epic adventure, Fitzcarraldo<\/em>, helmed by Werner Herzog.<\/p>\n \n\tIn a 2013 interview with The Guardian<\/em>, Cardinale, who was 74 at the time and still acting, reflected on her life\u2019s work. \u201cI don\u2019t want to stop!\u201d she laughed. \u201cThis is fantastic, to continue to work. It\u2019s important.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Claudia Cardinale, the Italian movie star known for her captivating performances in The Leopard, 8\u00bd, and Once Upon a Time in the West, has died at the age of 87. Cardinale died in Nemours, France, with her children by her side. Her agent, Laurent Savry, confirmed the news to Agence France-Presse\u00a0on Tuesday. The cause of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[14249,7581,9632,1596,14250,2596,6754,622],"class_list":{"0":"post-23358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-cardinale","9":"tag-cinema","10":"tag-claudia","11":"tag-dead","12":"tag-graced","13":"tag-italian","14":"tag-prolific","15":"tag-star"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n