page_title: Claudia Cardinale
section_title: 1950s
hierarchical_section_title: Claudia Cardinale / Career / 1950s
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Jacques Baratier, cinéaste français.
context_page_description: Claude Joséphine Rose "Claudia" Cardinale is an Italian Tunisian film actress and movie icon who starred in some of the most acclaimed European films of the 1960s and 1970s, mainly Italian or French, but also in many English-language films.
  Born and raised in La Goulette, a neighbourhood of Tunis, Cardinale won the "Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia" competition in 1957, the prize being a trip to Italy, which quickly led to film contracts, due above all to the involvement of Franco Cristaldi, who acted as her mentor for a number of years and later married her. After making her debut in a minor role with Omar Sharif in Goha, Cardinale became one of the best-known actresses in Italy with roles in films such as Rocco and His Brothers, Girl with a Suitcase, Cartouche, The Leopard, and Fellini's 8½. From 1963, Cardinale became known in the United States and Britain following her role in The Pink Panther opposite David Niven.
context_section_description: Cardinale's first film work was participating, along with classmates, in a short film by French director René Vautier, Anneaux d'or, successfully presented at the Berlin Film Festival. The film made her a minor local celebrity, and led to her being spotted by Jacques Baratier, who offered her a minor role in Goha. She accepted it reluctantly after Baratier explained he wanted a Tunisian actress rather than an Italian to star in the main role opposite the Egyptian actor Omar Sharif. The appearance nonetheless marked her feature-film debut. The turning point came in 1957 during the Italian Cinema Week in Tunis, when she won a competition for the "Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia", with a trip to the Venice Film Festival as first prize. After being spotted by several film producers at the event, she was invited to study at the Experimental Cinematography Center in Rome under Tina Lattanzi. She attended briefly as, despite her extremely photogenic looks, she had trouble with her acting assignments (partly owing to her difficulties with the Italian language). She left at the end of her first term and decided to return home, earning herself a cover story in the popular weekly Epoca triggered by her unexpected decision to turn her back on a career as a film star.
  Back in Tunis, however, Cardinale discovered unexpectedly that she was pregnant, the result of what she later described as a "terrible" relationship with a Frenchman, some 10 years her senior, which began when she was only 17 and lasted for about a year. On this discovery, he wanted her to have an abortion, but she decided to keep the child. She solved her problems by signing a seven-year exclusive contract with Franco Cristaldi's production company Vides. Cristaldi largely managed her early career, and she was married to him from 1966 until 1975.
  Under the new contract, in 1958, Cardinale was given a minor role with leading Italian actors Vittorio Gassman, Totò, Marcello Mastroianni, and Renato Salvatori in Mario Monicelli's internationally successful criminal comedy Big Deal on Madonna Street (I soliti ignoti). She portrayed Carmelita, a Sicilian girl virtually imprisoned in her home by her overpowering brother. The comedy was a huge success, making Cardinale instantly recognizable. Some newspapers were already referring to her as "la fidanzata d'Italia" (Italy's sweetheart). Later that year, she had a leading role opposite Yvonne Monlaur in Claudio Gora's romantic comedy Three Strangers in Rome.
  Although she worked well into her seventh month, Cardinale's pregnancy was kept a tight secret. Tormented by thoughts of suicide, she fell into a state of depression. When she thought she could no longer hide her condition, she asked Cristaldi to terminate her contract. Understanding her predicament, he sent her to London for the birth, far away from the press. He simply explained that she had gone to England to learn English for a film. Cristaldi told Cardinale not to reveal her condition as she would be betraying the public and it would put an end to her career. So as to maintain the secret, he drew up a detailed American-style contract covering every little detail of her life, depriving her of any possibility of acting on her own behalf. Cardinale explained: "I was no longer master of my own body or thoughts. Even talking with a friend about anything that could make me look different from my public image was risky, as if it had been publicized, I would have been in trouble. Everything was in the hands of Vides". For seven years, Cardinale kept her secret, not only from the public, but also from her own son, Patrick, who grew up in the family with her parents and sister more or less as a brother until the day Enzo Biagi, a journalist, discovered the truth. After Cardinale decided to tell him everything, he published her story in  Oggi and L'Europeo.
  In 1959, she appeared opposite Salvatori in the mafia film Vento del sud, and played the wife of Maurizio Arena in Luigi Zampa's Il magistrato. Cardinale also starred opposite Pietro Germi in his crime film The Facts of M
caption: French film director Jacques Baratier who spotted Cardinale
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