page_title: Claudia Cardinale
section_title: 1970s
hierarchical_section_title: Claudia Cardinale / Career / 1970s
caption_attribution_description: screenshot from the Italian film I Guappi (1974)
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: In 1970, Cardinale starred opposite Peter McEnery and Eli Wallach in Jerzy Skolimowski's comedy film The Adventures of Gerard, based on The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard by Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1971, she formed a duo with Brigitte Bardot in the French Western-comedy The Legend of Frenchie King, and appeared as a prostitute opposite Alberto Sordi in Luigi Zampa's comedy A Girl in Australia. The film, shot on location in February and March 1971, earned Cardinale a Best Actress award at the David di Donatello Awards the following year. In 1972, Cardinale appeared in Marco Ferreri's L'udienza, which was screened at the 22nd Berlin International Film Festival. She also featured in La Scoumoune with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Michel Constantin. After a role as a Russian aristocrat opposite Oliver Reed in One Russian Summer (1973), set in prerevolutionary Russia, Cardinale starred opposite Franco Nero in I guappi (1974), a historical drama film with "poliziotteschi" and "noir" elements. Cardinale and the director Pasquale Squitieri met for the first time on set, and he soon became her husband.
  In 1975, Cardinale played the daughter of a political exile (Adolfo Celi) in Mauro Bolognini Libera, My Love, a character who becomes "increasingly incensed by the fascist government of Italy and makes a number of bold and very personal gestures against it". Later that year she appeared in the comedies The Immortal Bachelor with Vittorio Gassman and Qui comincia l'avventura with Monica Vitti. Vitti's biographer noted how Cardinale and Vitti stood out as the female duo in a predominantly masculine cast.
  In 1976, Cardinale appeared in the sex comedy Il comune senso del pudore, which was directed and written by Alberto Sordi, who also co-starred. The following year, she had a biblical role as the adulteress in the Jesus of Nazareth miniseries, which featured Robert Powell as Jesus, Anne Bancroft as Mary Magdalene, and Ernest Borgnine as Cornelius the Centurion. Cardinale starred in her husband's Il prefetto di ferro, which tells the story of Cesare Mori (Giuliano Gemma), an Italian prefect that before and during the Fascist period was best known as "the Iron Prefect". The film shared the 1978 David di Donatello for Best Film award  with In nome del Papa Re. In 1978, Cardinale appeared in Damiano Damiani's political thriller, Goodbye & Amen – L'uomo della CIA, and again featured alongside Gemma in her husband's gangster picture, Corleone, set in 1950s Sicily.
  After a role in another Squitieri film in 1978, L'arma, Cardinale portrayed Eleana, a Greek "gutsy brothel madame" and the girlfriend of Telly Savalas in George P. Cosmatos's adventure war film, Escape to Athena (1979). The film, shot on location in Rhodes, was poorly received; it holds a 32% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes as of July 2015.
caption: Cardinale in I guappi (1974)
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