The Discreet Charms of Claudia Cardinale

In the age of Sophia Loren, there was also Claudia Cardinale. The screen world of Italy's neo-realism legend, who acted in Visconti and Fellini films

- PARAMITA GHOSH

LAUDIA Cardinale, a star of Italian Neo-Realist cinema, had less purr than Sophia Loren, less sauce than Gina Lollobrigida, but had more girl-next-door charm than both of them put together. She was just of a different mould. She was more likely what the Italian boy on screen would take home to his Italian mamma, and with her nod, get her to drive pillion on his scooty all over Rome. However, she could also play a postwar European glamour girl.

Cardinale, who had been living in Nemours, south of Paris, died at age 87 on September 23. The leading ladies of films by Italian masters of the 1960s and the 1970s, Luchino Visconti (The Leopard, Sandra, Rocco and His Brothers