Movie star Claudia Cardinale turns 80: congratulations, tigress!

Dear Signora Cardinale,

First of all, one can overdo it with professionalism. Marlon Brando, Marcello Mastroianni, Alain Delon: Three of the most beautiful men in film history - they all knocked at your door. Multiple. And all three have spurned you by their own admission.

A tiny exception I might have made in your place. No matter. They have decided against the flash of lightning, against even more attention and not with film partners behind the camera angehandelt. Hats off.

Other movie stars have married dozens of times - you never. Only once were you married: by Franco Cristaldi. The head of the film company Vides had contracted her in Rome in the late 1950s, when she was still a little Italian-speaking Tunisian, beautiful descendant of Sicilian emigrants. He flew after you in 1967 to the US where you were filming. And arranged a wedding party in Atlanta without your knowledge.

"I was Cinderella"

You have never acknowledged this marriage and felt constrained by the powerful producer who, while paving the way for you to film, deceived you for your personal freedom. So much so that you should deny having a child: Little Patrick, born after a rape, did not fit the glossy image of the perfect movie diva. For years you had to pretend that he was your little brother.

photo gallery

30 pictures

"I was Cinderella, completely surrendered to his generosity," you wrote in 1995 in your memoirs about Cristaldi. "I was not mistress, neither of my body nor of my thoughts." And yet did not covet long. Although masterminds such as Luchino Visconti and Federico Fellini tore you apart, they filmed one movie after another, sometimes even in parallel.

In Visconti's milestone "The Leopard" you were the black-haired, in Fellini's "Eighthinhalb" at the same time the blonde; here the angelic daughter of the burgess Angelica in the billowing ball gown, there diva Claudia and supernatural dream entity. It was Fellini who gave you back your voice in 1963 and did not let you synchronize for the first time. At last you could hear her raspy, rough timbre.

Cult status through spaghetti westerns

In the 1960s, you rose to become an international star and presented the world with terrific cinema moments: they made the audience giggle as cunning Princess Dala in "The Pink Panther". And they took their breath away as incredibly tough ex-whore Jill McBain in "play me the song of death".

A piercing look, no tear, no sign of weakness: Silently, you walked past the corpses of the Sweetwater farm, the indomitable Mrs. McBain with a white straw hat in the middle of the dirt. Strong, beautiful, unforgettable.

Sergio Leone's legendary Spaghetti Western finally gave you cult status in 1968: you arrived as "La Cardinale" in Italy's first divisional league with Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren. Sensually curvy, but more combative, defiant, determined to rebel.

Her friend Visconti realized that, "Everyone believes," he once said, "that Claudia Cardinale is a handsome kitten lying on the couch, waiting to be petted, but I'm telling you, this kitten is about to go to become a tigress, who sooner or later will tear down her tamer. "

A woman nobody can stop

And so it happened: in 1975, when you had already made your biggest films, you broke away from Cristaldi and his company to regain your freedom. Enraged, the abandoned producer tried to destroy your career - and your new love, director Pasquale Squitieri, along with you.

He did not succeed, fortunately. They have continued to shoot, over and over, over 100 films. On Sunday, April 15, 2018, celebrate your 80th birthday - a long career without scandals and without airs. Brigitte Bardot turned his back on acting at the age of 38. They persevered and proved courage.

Dangerous stunts you liked to shoot yourself. And followed in 1982 director Werner Herzog for "Fitzcarraldo" even in the Peruvian jungle. With murderous heat and barren food, you, as brothel owner Molly, fidelity to the crazy Klaus Kinski. You have to do that first.

With over 60 you started again and finally put off your shyness in front of the theater. Last time you toured Italy with the play "The Weird Couple" - side by side with the ex-wife of your ex-partner Squitieri. No wrinkle ironed out by the cosmetic surgeon, superb as ever.

"I am a woman that nobody can stop, I will never retire," you said to the "Corriere della Sera" in March 2018. And also that: "At 80, I am a woman who is at peace with herself. " Congratulations!

Sincerely

Your Katja Iken