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The world of cinema mourns the passing of actress Claudia Cardinale , who died at the age of 87. In a career spanning over sixty years, she worked with some of the most illustrious filmmakers, from Luchino Visconti to Sergio Leone, including Federico Fellini, Blake Edwards, Henri Verneuil, Liliana Cavani, Werner Herzog, and so many others.
In this illustrious career, studded with numerous masterpieces, at least two roles have ensured her place in history and left an indelible mark on the cinematic memory of audiences. The first was the dazzling role of Angelica in Visconti’s The Leopard, where she starred opposite Alain Delon and Burt Lancaster. And, of course, the unforgettable Jill in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West.
The film’s producer had a completely different actress in mind, as Leone recounted to film historian Noël Simsolo in interviews. “At first, he wanted to be involved in the film’s production. He suggested Sophia Loren for the role. She’s an actress I admire greatly, but I couldn’t see her playing a New Orleans prostitute. She can only portray a Neapolitan prostitute! I preferred Claudia Cardinale.”
“In the eyes of some rather snobbish Italians, Once Upon a Time in the West was not a very high-quality film.”
31 years after the film’s release, Claudia Cardinale will discuss her memories of filming with English director Howard Hill, as part of a documentary entitled Once Upon a Time in the West – Sergio Leone, to which Christopher Frayling, a leading expert on Leone and westerns, contributed .
“Sergio embodied cinema,” she said. “He was a wonderful director, but in the eyes of some rather snobbish Italians, Once Upon a Time in the West wasn’t a very high-level film. And now everyone is hailing him as a genius.”
Of all her scenes in the film, Claudia Cardinale confesses that her favorite is the truly fabulous one of her arrival in town by train, accompanied by the hypnotic and wonderful music of Ennio Morricone. “What mattered most [to Leone] was the music. He would play it for us just before we started shooting. It set the mood, and it became easier to get into character.”
This scene is, incidentally, filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet ‘s favorite.
“I was a little worried, and he himself was very tense.”
Her character’s arrival by train was filmed in Spain. But it was at Cinecittà that she began filming. She even recounts a delightful anecdote: her very first scene filmed was her love scene with Henry Fonda, alias Frank. A scene that wasn’t exactly intimate.
“We were surrounded by hundreds of journalists from all over the world, and Henry’s wife was sitting next to the camera. ‘This is the first time he’s filmed a love scene,’ I was told. I was a little worried, and he himself was very tense. It was the first day of filming.
“To start filming with a love scene with an actor you don’t know, under the gaze of all those people, can you imagine… They were sitting in a circle around us, like at the movies, and they were watching us.”
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