Venice Film Festival

ROME — Acclaimed Italian actor Claudia Cardinale, who starred in some of the most celebrated European films of the 1960s and ’70s, has died, AFP reported Tuesday. She was 87.

She starred in more than 100 films and made-for-television productions, but she was best known for embodying youthful purity in Federico Fellini’s “8½,” in which she co-starred with Marcello Mastroianni in 1963.

Cardinale also won praise for her role as Angelica Sedara in Luchino Visconti’s award-winning screen adaption of the historical novel “The Leopard” that same year and a reformed prostitute in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western “Once Upon a Time in the West” in 1968.

She died in Nemours, France, surrounded by her children, her agent Laurent Savry told AFP. Savry and his agency did not immediately return emailed requests for comment from the Associated Press.

Cardinale began her movie career at the age of 17 after winning a beauty contest in Tunisia, where she was born of Sicilian parents who had emigrated to North Africa. The contest brought her to the Venice Film Festival, where she came to the attention of the Italian movie industry.

Before entering the beauty contest, she had expected to become a schoolteacher.

“The fact I’m making movies is just an accident,” Cardinale recalled while accepting a lifetime achievement award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2002. “When they asked me, ‘Do you want to be in the movies?’ I said no, and they insisted for six months.”

Her success came in the wake of Sophia Loren’s international stardom, and she was touted as Italy’s answer to Brigitte Bardot. Although never achieving the level of success of the French actor, she nonetheless was considered a star and worked with the leading directors in Europe and Hollywood.

“They gave me everything,” Cardinale said. “It’s marvelous to live so many lives. I’ve been living more than 150 lives, totally different women.”

One of her earliest roles was as a black-clad Sicilian girl in the 1958 comedy classic “Big Deal on Madonna Street.” It was produced by Franco Cristaldi, who managed Cardinale’s early career and to whom she was married from 1966 to 1975.

The sensuous brunette with enormous eyes was often cast as a hot-blooded woman. As she had a deep voice and spoke Italian with a heavy French accent, her voice was dubbed in her early movies.

Her career in Hollywood brought only partial success because she was not interested in giving up European film. Nonetheless, she achieved some fame by teaming with Rock Hudson in the 1965 comedy thriller “Blindfold” and another comedy, “Don’t Make Waves,” with Tony Curtis two years later.

Cardinale herself considered the 1966 “The Professionals,” directed by Richard Brooks, as the best of her Hollywood films, where she starred alongside Burt Lancaster, Jack Palance, Robert Ryan and Lee Marvin.

In a 2002 interview with the Guardian, she explained that the Hollywood studio “wanted me to sign a contract of exclusivity, and I refused. Because I’m a European actress and I was going there for movies.”

“And I had a big opportunity with Richard Brooks, ‘The Professionals,’ which is really a magnificent movie,” she said. “For me, ‘The Professionals’ is the best I did in Hollywood.”

Among her industry prizes was a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement that she received at the Venice Film Festival nearly 40 years after her initial appearance onscreen.

In 2000, Cardinale was named a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization for the defense of women’s rights.

She had two children. One with Cristaldi and a second with her later companion, Italian director Pasquale Squitieri.

Simpson, the principal writer of this obituary, is a former Associated Press writer.

An upcoming nuclear war thriller starring an A-list actress is shaping up to be one of Netflix’s best new films of the year

Netflix subscribers have been going wild for a heart-racing trailer teasing what could be one of the best new films of 2025.

The political thriller from acclaimed director Kathryn Bigelow recently premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it received an incredible 11-minute standing ovation.

Led by Mission: Impossible star Rebecca Ferguson alongside a packed supporting cast of A-listers, A House of Dynamite is a must-watch when it premieres on the streamer this October.

Ferguson portrays Captain Olivia Walker, a communications point for the US Armed Forces who scrambles to respond to an incoming nuclear missile heading towards Chicago.

Idris Elba portrays the President of the United States, with Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses Ingram, Jonah Hauer-King, Greta Lee and Jason Clarke filling out the stellar cast.

A House of Dynamite is filmmaker Bigelow’s first film in almost a decade following her acclaimed 2017 historical drama Detroit. She has previously released hit films such as Point Break and Zero Dark Thirty.

The first trailer for the film dropped this Wednesday (3rd September) and film fans are already getting goosebumps over this timely take on an impending nuclear disaster.

One YouTuber user raved in the comments: “Probably Netflix’s best trailer.

“They showed just enough for me to not know what’s going on, but pulls me in enough to want to watch to see what happens.”

“That is an example of a fantastic trailer, I get the concept but know nearly nothing more and still managed goosebumps. Wow,” someone else gushed.

Another fan claimed: “Possibly the best trailer I have ever seen. Can’t wait to watch this!”

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This lets members watch live and on-demand TV content without a satellite dish or aerial and includes hit shows like Wednesday.

Viewers have also praised the decision to use a sample of scientist Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot to narrate the trailer.

“As soon as I heard Carl Sagan the tears started to fall and I will be there in theaters opening weekend!” someone exclaimed.

Another said: “This is how a Netflix trailer should be, not long that it spoils the whole movie. That Carl Sagan Voiceover is chilling.”

While another fan was particularly impressed by the taste of the film’s score, replying: “Volker Bertelmann giving us chills yet again. Wow. What a trailer.”

The thriller currently has an impressive 89 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes, so it’s definitely one to add to the top of your Netflix watchlist this autumn.

A House of Dynamite will be released Friday, 24th October on Netflix.