Claudia Cardinale

Claudia Cardinale's fascinating life can be read in her autobiography "Moi Claudia, Toi Claudia" which unfortunately is not available in English. Jane Darwell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures, at 6735 Hollywood Boulevard. She currently calls Paris her home. She died from a heart attack in Woodland Hills, California and was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery. Claudia Cardinale is a liberal with strong political convictions (She is a leftist involved in pro-women and pro-gay issues). She has also frequently stated that she is proud of her Arab heritage (She was born in Tunis) and is involved in many humanitarian causes. Always popular within the film industry, her final role as the old woman feeding the birds in Mary Poppins was personally given to her by Walt Disney. She has been married only once to the producer Franco Cristaldi but has been living with film director Pasquale Squitieri since 1975, and has two children ( Claudia Jr from Squitieri and her eldest son Patrick born out of wedlock from a mysterious Frenchman when the actress was only 18 and who was adopted by Cristaldi later on). By the end of her career she had appeared in more than 170 films, including Huckleberry Finn (1931), Roman Scandals (1933), Jesse James, The Rains Came, Gone With the Wind (all 1939), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), My Darling Clementine (1946) and Caged (1950).

Cardinale remains active in European cinema, her later films include Qui comincia l'avventura (1975), Fitzcarraldo (1982), La Storia (1985) and Un homme amoureux (1987). She won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), a role she was given at the insistence of the film's star, Henry Fonda. Other great performances by Cardinale include Valerio Zurlini's "Girl With A Suitcase" and Mauro Bolognini's "Libera". Short, stout and plain faced she was quickly cast in a succession of films usually as the mother of one of the major characters. It is a heartbreaking film with a stellar performance by Cardinale. After a 15 year absence from films, she resumed her film career in 1930 with a role in Tom Sawyer, and her career as a Hollywood character actress began. In Comencini's "La Storia" ,Cardinale plays a widow raising a son during WW2. She appeared in almost twenty films over the next two years before returning to the stage.

Her performance in Visconti's underrated " Sandra/Of A Thousand Delights" is mesmerizing playing a Holocaust survivor with an incestuous relationship with her brother. She began her acting career in theater productions in Chicago and made her first film appearance in 1913. She has appeared in more good European movies than most of her contemporaries. Born Patti Woodward in Palmyra, Missouri, Darwell originally intended to become a circus performer, however her family objected and she compromised by becoming an actress. Claudia Cardinale has proved herself to be one of Europe's most successful and endurable movie stars. Jane Darwell (October 15, 1879 – August 13, 1967) was an American theater and film actress. Her Hollywood films include Circus World (1964), The Pink Panther (1964) and The Hell With Heroes (1968).

She attempted halfheartedly to break into the US market but was let down by her lack of interest in leaving Europe for extended periods of time . Claudia Cardinale became an international superstar with a mix of breathtaking beauty,a throaty distinct voice and impressive dramatic skills.One has to watch her Italian and French movies to really appreciate her dramatic prowess. Throughout the 1960s she appeared in many Italian or Italian co-financed films including Luchino Visconti's Il Gattopardo (The Leopard, 1963), Rocco e i suoi fratelli (1963), Federico Fellini's 8½ and Sergio Leone's epic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). Her early career was largely managed by producer Franco Cristaldi.

She made her film debut in Goha (1958) and later that year had a role in the minor international success I Soliti ignoti. She had her break into films after winning a Tunisian beauty contest in 1957. Claudia Cardinale was born Claude Josephine Rose Cardin. Claudia Cardinale (born Good Friday April 15, 1938) is an actress born in Tunis, Tunisia to Italian parents.