CLAUDIA
CARDINALE:
Stardom,
Italian
Style
By PEER I.
OPPENHEIMER
FOR the first time in al
most a decade, Italy has
produced a smoldering beauty
who is likely to become a world
renowned personality like So
phia Loren. She's brown-eyed
and brown-haired, 23-year-old
Claudia Cardinale.
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Recently I visited Claudia in Italy,
and naturally I was struck by her
sultry Mediterranean loveliness. But
oddly enough, she also reminded me
of an early-day Debbie Reynolds.
Claudia's straightforwardness, sim-
When the choice is yours. ..choose
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ATLAS 551
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plicity, and innocence would be sur
prising in Hollywood but in Rome it
came as an absolute shock!
This may not be accidental Claudia
is the careful product of a resourceful
Italian producer, Franco Cristaldi,
who tutored and guided her with the
utmost care and attention.
Claudia first came to public atten
tion four years ago when she won the
title, "Most Beautiful Italian Girl," in
her native Tunis in North Africa. (Ac
tually, she is of French and Italian
origin.) First prize was a trip to Ven
ice, and there she was spotted by
Cristaldi, who put her under contract
six months later.
When she returned to Italy, she
brought along her entire family her
father (a technical engineer), her
mother, her younger sister, and her
two brothers. Cristaldi installed them
in one of his own villas, staffed with
servants, a secretary, a publicist, and
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a chauffeur, and promptly enrolled
Claudia in an acting school in Rome.
The latter brought fierce resistance
from hia protegee. "I stayed for a
month," Claudia told me, "and then I
quit I simply could not become a tree.
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MOVIES
That's what they asked me to da
grow and than fall and die like a tree.
You call this the Method' in your
country? I thought it was craxy."
Reassured by the tremendous suc
cess of her first picture, "Big Deal
on Madonna Street," Cristaldi agreed
that she could do without a for
mal acting education. Subsequent
events have proved him right; she
has won critical acclaim in 21 films '
including "Bell' Antonio" opposite
Marcello Mastroianni and "The Leo
pard" opposite Burt Lancaster. She
currently is starring in "The Pink
Panther" with David Niven, Peter
Sellers, and Robert Wagner.
Claudia always had a mind of her
own. As a teen-ager in Tunis, she was
never allowed to go out by herself. "It
just wasn't safe for young European
girls," she recalls. "My parents were
so concerned that when we were at our
beach house, they had a servant girl
sleep at the foot of my bed."
But Claudia's stubbornness was ob
vious to her parents at an early age.
"When I was 15, it was fashionable Jto
dress like a beatnik you know, with
black pull-over, black skirt, pony tail,
and all that But Mother refused to
buy me black things, so I solved the
problem by secretly dyeing a plaid
skirt black and wearing it with a pull
over, which I also dyed."
Slanted eyes were in fashion, so
Claudia pulled her eyes back every
day. Since make-up was prohibited In
the convent school she attended, (he
made up her eyes and eyebrows with a
lead pencil the moment she left school.
Claudia's provincial upbringing
hardly prepared her for interna
tional stardom. So as his ft rut step,
Cristaldi hired young woman from
Greensboro, N.C., to be her tutor.
Caroline Pfeiffer taught Claudia to
speak almost flawless English, super
vised her manners, and accompanied
her on shopping trips. Even now,
whenever Claudia leaves the housey
she is accompanied either by a mem
ber of her family or by Caroline.
It seems hard to believe that a
breath-takingly beautiful girl like
Claudia could lead such a restricted
life. I asked her about it when I
visited her at the handsomely fur
nished farmhouse outside Rome where
she makes her home. "It's easy," she
said with a smile. "When I'm not
working, I spend one week a month
in Paris. It's not hard to get lost in
the crowd there."
There was one question left in my
mind before I said good-by. "Don't
you want to get married?"
"Someday, but not soon," she said
without hesitation.
"Does that mean you're too ambi
tious now?"
"If I weren't ambitious, I wouldn't
be in pictures," she said frankly.
So smart, so frank, and so beautiful;
Move over, Sophia, Gina, and Brigitte.
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