Claudia Cardinal, an Italian actress of Tunisian origin, became a cinematic sex symbol in the 1960s and 1970s. However, not so much is known that her life was not entirely a bed of roses.
Claudia Cardinal, “CC”, was born on April 15, 1938 in Tunis. She is an Italian stage and film actress who became a legend and icon of sexuality in the films of the 60s and 70s. She became famous mainly for the roles of women with an Italian temperament. During her career, she collaborated with many important directors and won many film awards, especially at the Venice Film Festival.
Horror childhood
Although originally from Sicily, she grew up in Tunisia where her family spoke only French, one of the country’s official languages. Claudia herself was raised in a French environment, not an Italian one. “I was quite wild as a child. The parents wanted a boy and a girl was born. So I tried to make it up to them. I roamed the streets with a group of boys, fighting. I was wild and unbridled,” admitted Claudia Cardinalová in Jiří Žák’s book of interviews Schůzka nad Seinou.
As a child, she experienced the war horrors of the African front of the Second World War, often hiding with her family in basements and facing constant relocation. He recalls this period as follows: “Then the bomb dropped. It happened during one of the first bombings of Tunis, we were all at home… Of course the target of the bombing was the port, and our house was right next door. And so, while my mother was stuffing us with sugar cubes to keep us from crying and to comfort us and distract us from the horrible noise, one bomb fell right in the yard next to our house and resulted in almost the whole house collapsing, but our apartment was miraculously intact. We all ran outside, Blanche and I holding hands with mum and dad, and I remember a dead horse lying with its feet up in the middle of the yard, hit by a bomb: the first dead body in my life.” describes the actress in her biography I Claudia, you Claudia.
Beautiful Claudia, but at what cost?
Her significant photogenic appearance already made her stand out from the crowd at a young age. As a young girl, she looked younger than she really was. The turning point for Claudia was 1957. At that time, she was working as a seller of raffle tickets for the competition for the most beautiful Italian woman in Tunisia.
Although she did not participate in the competition herself, her striking beauty did not escape the attention of many people in the hall. Despite her protests, she was pulled up to the stage and eventually won the competition. This unexpected turn from part-time worker to star opened the door to other opportunities for her, including an invitation to the Venice Film Festival.
Even though she never had ambitions to become an actress and wanted to be a teacher, she signed a contract for her first film role within two months. She was inspired in her young years Brigitte Bardot and sometimes even imitated her.
Before Claudia became famous, she experienced a trauma that she would like to erase from her memory. It was revealed years later that she had been raped by one of her suitors. She never released his name (supposedly he was a Frenchman working in the Air Force), but this incident marked her entire life.
Claudia became pregnant and, despite this trauma, continued to associate with this Frenchman for unclear and almost self-destructive reasons. Despite the difficulties, she decided not to have an abortion and continued to work on the film set during her pregnancy, suffering from pregnancy sickness.
Rough beginnings
Claudia went to Venice already pregnant. There the producer noticed her Frank Cristaldi, who immediately took her under his wing, but with harsh conditions. She had to wear a corset during her pregnancy, secretly gave birth in London and left her son in Tunisia with her parents, pretending to be her brother. In addition, she had to maintain her figure and not change her appearance at any cost.
Despite Frank’s domineering behavior, she became involved with him and even married him. Their relationship was full of limitations, but also of film successes. Her film debut was a picture Confused does not apply and since then she has worked with many famous actors like Jean-Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon, Sean Connery and more.
Claudia was married to producer Cristaldi for nine years. She subsequently married a director for the second time Paqual Squitier, who unfortunately passed away a few years ago. Together they had a daughter named Claudia.
In 2012, she sat on the jury of Czech Miss. She lives in Paris, is a UNESCO ambassador for women of the 21st century and an activist for the protection of women’s rights in her native Tunisia.
Sources: lidovky.cz, extra.cz, cs.wikipedia.org
