Her dysfunctional relationship with Cristaldi, whom she left in 1975, didn’t slow down her career.
The natural beauty, who made her debut in the French-Tunisian film Goha with Omar Sharif, quickly earned the reputation as one Italy’s best actors. She then had leading roles in Rocco and his Brothers (1960), and in 1963 she starred in the Oscar-winning film 8½ with Marcello Mastroianni, and The Leopard with Burt Lancaster. Both films, where she played a seemingly unattainable object of desire, are praised by the award-winning director Martin Scorsese as two of his top 12 favorites.
‘Italian Brigitte Bardot’
Gaining traction in Hollywood, she starred alongside David Nivens in The Pink Panther and then shared the screen with legends like John Wayne and Rita Hayworth in 1964’s Circus World.
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