Claudia Cardinale's Birthday
On April 15, 1938, in the Tunisian city of La Goulette (or Halq al-Wadi), in the family of a railway worker Francesco Cardinale and his wife Yolanda Greco, natives of Sicily, a daughter was born, who was named Claude Joséphine Rose. Since the part of modern Tunisia where Claude Joséphine Rose was born was at that time a French colony, French became her mother tongue. Claude Joséphine Rose studied at an ordinary school in the city of Carthage (former capital city of the ancient Carthaginian civilization). Like most of her peers, she was a fan of Brigitte Bardot, but at the same time wanted, after graduating from school, to become a teacher. However, fate decreed in its own way.
In March 1956, Tunisia gained independence and state sovereignty. The Tunisian National Tourism Authority, which was created, decided to make a film advertising the country's tourist attractions, and invited the French director René Vautier for this purpose. And Vautier for the filming of this picture as extras invited the whole class in which Claude Joséphine Rose studied. The short film "Les Anneaux d'or (The Golden Rings)" directed by René Vautier was the first Tunisian film and was noted at the Berlin International Film Festival, where it received the Youth Film Award as the Best Short Film Suitable for Young People. And Claude Cardinale, thanks to her beauty, came to the attention of filmmakers.
Another French director, Jacques Barratier, invited Claude Cardinale to his film "Goha", in which the young Egyptian actor Omar Sharif played the main role. The role was small, but no longer episodic. Claude agreed very reluctantly. Only with the help of Claude's father, Jacques Barratier managed to persuade the young actress to play a small role. And initially he wanted to offer her the main female role. ... And again the film with the participation of Cardinale was a festival success: it was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. But it lost, and, apparently, quite deservedly, since the winner of that festival would have been the Soviet film "The Cranes Are Flying" directed by Mikhail Kalatozov. But Jacques Barratier was awarded the Jury Prize for Best Director.
Simultaneously with her successes in cinema, and perhaps thanks to them, Claude Cardinale achieved success in another field, namely: in 1957 she won a beauty contest held as part of the Italian Film Week in Tunisia. Winning this competition earned her the title of "Most Beautiful Italian Woman in Tunisia", as well as an award in the form of a trip to the Venice International Film Festival.
In Venice, Claude Cardinale was in the spotlight of several Italian film producers who offered her more or less lucrative contracts. Claude opted for Franco Cristaldi. He signed a rather lucrative contract with Claude and sent her to study at the Center for Experimental Cinematography in Rome. By this contract, she was prohibited from cutting her luxurious, long, shiny hair, getting married or gaining weight. It would seem that the future was determined ... And suddenly Claude, without even completing the first semester, takes off and leaves for Tunis.
The official version of the reasons for such an urgent return home is problems with studies due to poor knowledge of the Italian language. However, in our opinion, the more probable reason for this "flight" is another. According to the memoirs of the actress herself, on the way home, she realized that she was pregnant. Different sources indicate different reasons for this pregnancy, and always with reference to the memories of Cardinale herself. Somewhere it says that she was raped. Somewhere that she had an affair with a certain Frenchman, 10 years older than her, who, upon learning about pregnancy, began to insist on an abortion. None of this matters to us. The main thing is that Claude Cardinale decided to leave the child, returned home, gave birth to a boy, named him Patrizio, and returned to Italy to Franco Cristaldi. And so that Cristaldi had no reason to accuse her of violating the terms of the contract, she presented Patrizio to everyone as her brother. Only at the age of 19 did Patrizio find out who his real mother was.
Already in 1958, Cardinale, having changed the French version of her name to the Italian - Claudia - played a rather large role in the film "I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street)". The film was directed by Mario Monicelli, and of course produced by Franco Cristaldi. Claudia's partners were already recognized as the movie stars Vittorio Gassman, Marcello Mastroianni, Ranato Salvatori, Toto. The film won the San Sebastian Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award. Accordingly, the role in this film brought Claudia Cardinale worldwide fame.
I don't remember exactly whether films with the participation of Claudia Cardinale were shown in the USSR in the 60s, but I first saw her in the "Красная палатка La tenda rossa (The Red Tent)", which was released on the screens of Soviet cinemas in 1970, and somewhere in 1972, even shown on television. Oh, and what a gorgeous woman she was. And how we boys were jealous of Eduard Martsevich! And how we understood Hardy Krueger! By the way, "The Red Tent" is one of the rare cases when the Russian version turned out to be better than the Italian one. For two reasons: the great music of Zatsepin sounds in Russian, a hundredfold surpassing the rather ordinary, apparently on-duty music, albeit great, Ennio Morricone. And in the Russian version there is no plaintive presentation of Italian history at the beginning. But both versions have the great actress Claudia Cardinale who can grace any movie!
To date, Claudia Cardinale has roles in 102 full-length feature films. 7 films with the participation of Claudia Cardinale entered the Golden Thousand. Thanks to this indicator and her beauty, Claudia Cardinale is included in the list of the 100 most beautiful and sexiest Actresses in the world cinema, compiled by FilmGourmand. In honor of the birthday of the great Actress, we want to remind her fans of shots from the best films with her participation.
