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Corinne Calvet – men behaving badly

Around 1946. Corinne Calvet by Sam Lévin. Read more.

Corinne Calvet was a smart and ambitious actress, whose talents were squandered by a Hollywood system that failed to see beyond her obvious sexual allure.

Corinne was no dumb blonde. She hung out in Paris after World War II with Jean Cocteau, Jean Anouilh, Jean-Paul Sartre and the existentialist set. She also had the intellect and eloquence to win a place at the Sorbonne to study criminal law before deciding to become an actress. As she herself pointed out:

A lawyer needs exactly what an actor needs: strong personality, persuasive powers and a good voice.

Now, it has to be said that Corinne was no saint. She was well aware of her very considerable charms and not averse to deploying them when it suited her. If a décolleté dress would increase her chances of gaining the attention of a director or producer who could help her further her career, then so far as she was concerned that was all in a day’s work.

She bares all in Has Corinne Been A Good Girl?, the autobiography she published in 1983. Among other things, it’s a strikingly candid exposé of the predatory behaviour of the moguls, directors and producers who had it in their power to make or break her career. They come across as a group with a sense of entitlement and no moral compass.

Corinne Dibot becomes Corinne Calvet

Corinne Dibot is born in 1925, the youngest of four children. Her father is an impoverished count, her mother, Juliette, an heiress as well as being one of the scientists who contributed to the invention of Pyrex glassware, seemingly at the expense of spending time with her children. Corinne is devastated when Juliette suddenly and unexpectedly dies in 1935. 

She becomes something of a wild child, hanging out with the local boys. Age 15, she’s expelled from the convent school she’s been attending after she’s found with an erotic book from her father’s office. Her sexual adventures result in two very unpleasant backstreet abortions.

1954. Corinne’s friend Martine Carol as Annamaria in La Spiaggia. Photo by G B Poletto. Read more.

By the time she sets out around 1947 to find fame and fortune in Hollywood, she’s had stints at art school, law school, theatrical school and the École du Cinéma; she’s made her stage debut, worked as a radio hostess and had a few small film roles. And she’s adopted the surname Calvet because her father doesn’t want their aristocratic family name associated with acting.

Corinne goes to Hollywood

One day a friend from her student days, Martine Carol, asks Corinne to go with her to a party hosted by Paramount. Apparently they’re looking for a leading lady to play opposite Ray Milland. She’s introduced to him and when she comes to leave, she’s informed that Paramount want her to come to their office the next day. She’s presented with a form:

1949. Corinne Calvet kicks off her career. Read more.

I started filling in the answers, but soon the questions began to probe into my private life, asking for details in personal taste, my thoughts on marriage and children, my sleeping habits. Did I wear pyjamas or a nightgown? What was my preference in men, short, tall, fat, skinny, hairy or bald? … It seemed more like the kind of questionnaire a madam might use in selecting girls to work in a brothel.

She tears up the form and flounces out. In spite of (or perhaps because of) which, Paramount decide to offer Corinne a seven-year contract. Jean-Pierre urges her to accept and put her career first.

On arrival in the New York in 1947, she’s surprised and not entirely delighted that the American press and studios seem to be interested in her almost entirely as a sex symbol. 

I was already encountering the stereotyped notions American men had about French women. Their eyebrows would go up and they would leer sideways as they greeted me. American GIs, soldiers whose experience with French women was usually limited to girls of questionable repute, had been partly responsible for this reaction. But such impressions were entirely false. Most French women were raised with an emphasis on being good wives and mothers, and it was absurd to conclude that they were in any way promiscuous. Immediately I realised that in the minds of many American men, however, French women were decidedly over-sexed, and that I was a prime example of French womanhood.

As she departs on the train for Hollywood she’s warned warned to be on her guard against the wolves she will encounter.

1949. Corinne Calvet in Rope of Sand. Read more.

Corinne Calvet and William Meiklejohn

One night soon after she’s arrived in Hollywood, after dinner at Romanoff’s, William Meiklejohn, Paramount’s head of talent and casting, suggests the party adjourns to the Mocambo. He ushers Corinne into the larger of the two waiting cars and lets the other five studio executives take the other.

15 minutes later, she realises the car is heading neither for Mocambo nor for the house she’s staying at. Meiklejohn tells her he thought they’d go and have a tête-à-tête on the beach. She asks him to have the car turn round and take her home. Instead, he puts his hand between her legs, forcing them apart. She grabs one of his fingers and twists it hard until he tells the driver to make for Mocambo.

Now she’s out of favour at Paramount and her career is on hold.

Corinne Calvet, Rory Calhoun and Harry Cohn

It’s around this time that she falls in love with actor Rory Calhoun and embarks on an affair with him. Then she gets a summons from Harry Cohn, boss at Columbia via his sidekick, Walter Kane. Cohn has plans for four movies in which Rita Hayworth was going to star. But now that she’s left the studio, he’s looking for a replacement. Join him this afternoon on his yacht for a trip to Catalina Island.

When she boards the boat, “Cohn’s snakelike eyes were piercing my clothes, examining each part of my body.” It turns out that Mrs Cohn will not be joining the jaunt. They reach Catalina Island, have dinner and then Kane goes ashore – he says he can’t get to sleep on a rocking boat. With Kane out of the way, Cohn makes to kiss Corinne and she flees to her cabin, only to discover there is no lock on the door. In due course, Cohn turns up in his pyjama bottoms, “his eyes narrowed with lust.” As he approaches her, she knees him in the groin, yells for help and the deckhands arrive.

1950. Corinne Calvet beside her bust. Read more.

“Call the shore boat and get this French bitch off my yacht,” Cohn said with vicious finality.

Our heroine takes the first flight home only to find Rory in the middle of trashing the place, having assumed she’s capitulated to Cohn’s advances. When she tells him what happened, he drives her straight out to the harbour, rents a boat and sails it to Catalina Island (though Corinne has to take the wheel when the conditions deteriorate and Rory gets seasick).

On arrival, Rory moors the boat next to Cohn’s, takes Corinne down to the cabin and undresses her, then takes her back on deck to make noisy love to her. At which point, the lights go on in Cohn’s yacht, the crew emerge and lean over the railing to see what’s going on. When Cohn himself appears, Rory shouts, “Take a good look, Mr Cohn. This is the closest you’ll ever get.”

A few days later, Rory instructs Corinne to buy a new dress and have her hair done. He’ll pick her up at 18:00, take her out for dinner and announce their engagement to the press. But he doesn’t turn up. She waits and she waits. And then she goes in search of him, finally tracking him down at Ciro’s, where he’s at a table with his agent, Henry Willson.

She persuades him to dance with her and asks him why he’s stood her up. Henry has told him that marrying Corinne would be bad for his career. Rory refuses to kiss her and, as the saying goes, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. When the couple return to the table, she pours the open bottle of champagne over Rory’s head and flounces out to her car.

Up the road, she lays in wait for him to leave and then follows him back to Henry’s house. She rings the bell and demands a kiss. She’s parked her car across the drive and won’t move it until she gets satisfaction. Rory goes inside and comes back with a pistol. He fires a warning shot over the bonnet of Corinne’s car, then holds the gun to her head. Henry, meanwhile, is on his knees, holding onto Rory’s leg and pleading with him. Police sirens wail in the distance – the neighbours have heard the shot and called them. Corinne flees to her apartment.

1949. Corinne Calvet as Suzanne Renaud in Rope of Sand. Read more.

Corinne Calvet and Hal Wallis

It’s 1948. When someone reports Corinne to the House Un-American Activities Committee for her association with the existentialist movement in France, the only way she can stick around is to get a US husband. In the teeth of his mother’s opposition, actor John Bromfield comes up trumps. The pair are married in Boulder City and spend their honeymoon night at Las Vegas’ Flamingo Hotel – a venue you’ll be familiar with if you read about Virginia Hill, a seriously bad good-time girl.

On their return from honeymoon to Los Angeles, John is sent off to do location shooting in Arizona. They both have contracts with Hal Wallis Productions and one evening while her husband’s away, Hal Wallis, best known now as the producer of Casablanca, drops by their apartment. After a bit of banter he makes a lunge for Corinne. When she locks herself in the bathroom and points out she’s a married woman, he tells her he told John to propose to her – it was a marriage of convenience to suit the studio. She’s devastated.

Wallis goes on to punish Corinne by cancelling John’s contract and putting her in My Friend Irma Goes West (1950), a comedy starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

Rope of Sand [her previous film] had made me a valuable property. Doing this film would ruin my chances of rising higher as a dramatic star.

For his birthday, Corinne gives Wallis a picture she’s painted of him as a clown. In her memoir, she protests that it’s an innocent, well intentioned gift and she’s astonished to hear that he’s furious. Really???

So Wallis puts her into another Martin and Lewis comedy, Sailor Beware (1952). With John out of work, once again she can’t afford to say no to it.

1952. Corinne Calvet. Read more.

On the set one morning as Dean and I were rehearsing our duet, Wallis stopped the routine. The playback had stopped. The set was silent.

“Corinne,” Wallis’ voice boomed. “I’ve told you, I don’t want my actresses to wear falsies.”

“I’m not wearing any.”

“Go and take them out,” he ordered.

“Mr. Wallis, are you calling me a liar?”

I spoke in a menacing tone as I approached him. I grabbed his hand, and in front of everyone, put it inside my dress and made sure he felt that I had nothing there but my own breasts.

“Are you finding anything there but my flesh? No? Then thank you.”

Dropping his hand, I returned to stand next to Dean Martin, who looked extremely amused.

After she completes Flight for Tangier (1953), Wallis reveals that Corinne is one of a number of stars whose contract he will not be renewing.

Two or three years later, she finds herself in a New York club having dinner at the same table as Wallis. When he starts to grope her under the table, she goes off to “powder her nose.” It’s at this point that she realises that she’s running a very high fever and decides it’s payback time. When she returns to the table, she leads Wallis to believe he has a chance with her. She gets him to take her for a romantic ride in a horse-drawn carriage in Central Park, during which she does what it takes to pass her infection on to him. Three days later, she sends him four dozen red roses with an accompanying note: “Next time I’ll give you something worse. Best wishes for your recovery.”

1960. Darry Zanuck (background) shares a table with Juliette Greco and Orson Welles. Read more.

Corinne Calvet and Darryl Zanuck

Back in 1950, Corinne’s agent manages to get her a contract shared between Hal Wallis and Darryl Zanuck, head honcho at 20th Century-Fox. The first movie in which they cast her is When Willie Comes Marching Home. Director John Ford was hoping to get Maureen O’Hara for Corinne’s part, so he’s a bit disappointed and hostile. To make matters worse, Corinne’s interpretation of her role is different from his. It turns out that Zanuck likes her take and tells her to persist with it, so she’s caught in the crossfire between two big egos.

One day, Zanuck summons her to his office.

Zanuck got up from behind his desk. I sat down, and he started to pace up and down in front of me, making small talk.

“Wasn’t the weather cold this week in Los Angeles,” he said, looking out the window. “The Palm Springs sun should be very pleasant.” Dramatically, he turned on his heels and stood a few feet away from me with his erect penis standing proudly out of his unzipped pants.

“How do you like that?” He was smiling proudly.

When Corinne fails to respond as expected, Zanuck implies that if she agrees to have sex with him, he will offer John a contract at 20th Century-Fox. She tells John about the meeting.

And when I finished saying that I was willing to do it with his consent he looked at me in total disgust.

“You bitch. You could have done it without telling me.”

Really, what’s a girl to do?

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corinne calvet martin lewis

1950. My Friend Irma Goes West

This is the movie to which Hal Wallis relegated Corinne as a reprisal for rejecting his advances. It dashed her hopes of becoming a dramatic actress following her success in Rope of Sand.

Her co-stars here are Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, who performed in nightclubs and on radio before branching out into TV and films. Popular with US audiences at the time, it feels pretty cringeworthy now.

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corinne calvet tv show

1952. The Name’s the Same

Corinne Calvet tries to stump the panel in this extract from The Name’s the Same.

The host is Robert Q Lewis, the panelists writer Abe Burrows, actress Joan Alexander and composer Meredith Willson.

Here again, there’s lots of embarrassing flirting and suggestiveness. How times have changed!

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corinne calvet argument

1989. Corinne Calvet vs Cesar Romero

Talkshow host Joe Franklin sits down with five Hollywood veterans.

The discussion gets cantankerous around 1:15 when Corinne claims that her career suffered after she fended off the advances of mogul Harry Cohn and producer Hal Wallis. Cesar Romero responds by suggesting that she shouldn’t be making such a fuss about it – that she not they was the problem.

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corinne calvet interview

1992. Corinne Calvet TV interview

The unctuous interviewer is actor and talk-show host, Skip Lowe.

Feel free to skip (pun intended) the unbelievably cheesy introduction and bear in mind that this appears to be an unedited recording, complete with blank screens and off-screen discussion.

What to make of Corinne Calvet?

1952. Corinne Calvet goes to war with Zsa Zsa Gabor. Read more.

Of course, Corinne Calvet gives us only her side of the story. And reading between the lines and taking account of various contemporary articles and reports, she comes across as a pretty feisty and litigious individual, often well able and willing to give as good as she gets. Good for her!

Her writing style can be an obstacle to taking her seriously:

I looked up at Rory Calhoun as he introduced himself. I tumbled into the dazzling whirlpool of his eyes. It was as refreshing as the light green spring meadows when the leaves are still new. There was a fire in the depth of his glance that consumed my resistance. It was too strong, too intoxicating.

Nevertheless… Corinne Calvet’s story is one woman’s case study of the starlet’s dilemma and a reminder of just how exploitative the movie industry was back in the day (which is not to say that it’s exactly spotless today, witness the #MeToo movement). She suffered the same fate as many beautiful women prepared to exploit their physical attributes as part of their acting repertoire, eliciting from critics a kind of lecherous glee on the one hand and sneers of contempt on the other.

On IMDb she has 49 credits as an actress, including appearances in TV series as well as roles in feature films. But sadly, her dreams of a career as a serious dramatic actress went up in a puff of ooh la la, double entendre and mediocre movies. Ultimately, she became known to the public primarily for her combustible private life and a number of headline-grabbing legal battles.

1961. Corinne Calvet at a Beverly Hills party with Don Scott. Read more.

As well as having various love affairs, she had three failed marriages and a son by her second husband. In an interview quoted in the 21 April 1960 edition of the Los Angeles Times, Corinne Calvet wryly observed:

American men make wonderful husbands if you don’t love them. But if you love them, don’t marry them. I don’t mean they are lousy lovers. I just think they are little boys who don’t know what they want. In America, you don’t have romances, you have affairs. And these affairs really lack class.

Want to know more about Corinne Calvet?

The main source of information about Corinne Calvet is her autobiography, Has Corinne Been a Good Girl? I made quite extensive notes as I read it. If you’d like a copy of them, please contact me.

The best factual overviews are at Wikipedia and Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen. You can find obituaries is, among others, The Guardian, New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Variety.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Paris after World War II – fact, fashion and fantasy
The paparazzi – shock horror birth of a monster
Barbara Stanwyck in The Two Mrs Carrolls
Unsafe sex – the starlet’s dilemma

Filed Under: Behind the scenes, Crew, Stars Tagged With: Corinne Calvet, Corinne Dibot, Darryl Zanuck, Don Scott, G B Poletto, Hal Wallis, Harry Cohn, Henry Willson, John Bromfield, Juliette Gréco, Martine Carol, Rope of Sand, Rory Calhoun, Sailor Beware, Sam Lévin, William Meiklejohn, Zsa Zsa Gabor

Claudia Cardinale – up for a challenge

1966. Claudia Cardinale, radiant, at an event. Read more.

During the early 1960s, the Italian actresses whose names were on audiences’ lips outside Italy were Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren. They’d broken into Hollywood and in doing so left a gap back home. Into that gap stepped Claudia Cardinale with glorious aplomb.

In 1963, her breakthrough year, she starred in two of the iconic films of the era: Federico Fellini’s 8½ and Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard. It wasn’t long before Hollywood beckoned. After all, Claudia had all the necessary qualifications. As The Guardian observed in its 11 September 2011 edition:

A generation of postwar cinephiles rhapsodised over her earthy voluptuousness, her hourglass figure, her “bedroom eyes”, her cascading brunette tresses. She was the embodiment of postwar European glamour and was packaged as such, on screen and off. It’s almost like she had sexiness thrust upon her.

But there’s more to Claudia Cardinale than meets the eye…

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Claudia Cardinale poses for a portrait

Claudia Cardinale poses for a portrait

1959. Claudia Cardinale, at the outset of her career, poses for a portrait shot. She's up against a wall here – literally rather than metaphorically. There's a Cameraphoto agency stamp on the back of the print as well as a date (21 July 1959).

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Claudia Cardinale as Bianca, a prostitute, in Mauro Bolognini's film La viaccia (The Lovemakers)

Claudia Cardinale, promotional shot for La viaccia

1961. Claudia Cardinale as Bianca, a prostitute, in Mauro Bolognini's film La viaccia (The Lovemakers). The descriptive label on the back of the photo partially obscures a Pierluigi copyright notice. There's also a Cinémonde Archives stamp.

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Claudia Cardinale at a premiere

Claudia Cardinale at a premiere

1966. The premiere is likely of The Professionals in Monte Carlo on 28 November 1966. The print is stamped on the back by Reporters Associés (Paris) and International Magazine Service (Sweden).

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Claudia Cardinale head and shoulders with water drips

Claudia Cardinale

Mid-1960s. It looks like Claudia Cardinale has just got out of a swimming pool. There's nothing on the back of the print to indicate when or where this photo was taken. It has also proved impossible to track down online, hence the vague date.

Claudia Cardinale’s teenage turbulence

Her father, a railway worker, is a Sicilian emigrant to Tunisia. Her mother is French (or, according to some accounts, born in Tunisia to Sicilian emigrants). They make their home in Tunis and that’s where Claudia is born in 1938. She grows up with her three siblings, with French her first language (Tunisia is a French protectorate) but also a smattering of Tunisian Arabic and Sicilian (a different and distinct language from Italian).

Claudia Cardinale publicity shot for Il bell'Antonio
1959. Claudia Cardinale publicity shot by Elda Luxardo & Francesco Alessi for Il bell’Antonio. Read more.

Her first appearance on film is in the 1956 movie Anneaux d’or. Alongside her classmates all dressed in white, she stands on the shore watching a group of young men on a boat waving enthusiastically at them. She follows this up in 1957 with a minor role opposite Omar Sharif in Goha, a French-Tunisian movie nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival. She also starts at university with a view to becoming a primary school teacher but fate intervenes. She remembers:

I was in the crowd at the Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia contest, watching all the girls onstage. Suddenly a man took me up there and put the ribbon on me! The prize was a trip to the Venice Film Festival. At the time the bikini was not common in Italy, and I arrived in a bikini with a djellaba robe on top. All the paparazzi were photographing me. I was with my mother, very young – we couldn’t understand what was happening! It was all because I had a bikini on. Then they asked me to do cinema and I said no. When I got on the plane home, there was a picture of me in the newspaper, and the headline was ‘The Girl Who Refuses Cinema’.

She does, however, accept a place at the Centro Sperimentale Cinematografico, Italy’s national film school in Rome. But it doesn’t work out. She’s there for little more than a month before, feeling homesick, struggling with the language and disenchanted with the Method approach to acting, she calls it a day. She makes her way back to Tunis, where something truly shocking happens:

One day as I was walking home from school in Tunis a man in a car grabbed me and raped me and I became pregnant. After that my mother and my sister stayed close to me. I gave birth in London, because in those days it would have been a scandal. We pretended that my son was my little brother. I didn’t want to become an actress; I did it so I could be independent.

1961. Claudia Cardinale. Photo by Angelo Frontoni.

Meanwhile, for the Italian cinema world, out of sight has not meant out of mind. Stories continue to appear in magazines about the girl who rejected stardom to be with her family. Offers continue to roll in. Finally, depressed and at her wits’ end, she signs a long-term contract with Vides Films, a production company set up by Franco Cristaldi. It is he who sends her to London to keep her pregnancy away from the prying eyes of the Italian press. Her son Patrick is then placed in the care of nuns in Italy. When he gets to four and a half, he’s transferred to Tunis to be looked after by Claudia’s parents. The story is that he’s Claudia’s little brother.

The Vides contract turns out to be a double-edged sword. It gets Claudia out of her predicament and will be the making of her professionally, but financially it will prove to be a disaster, she later tells Variety.

Well, Cristaldi was the best producer in Europe and thanks to him I made lots of great movies. But the problem was that I was paid a monthly salary; I wasn’t paid per movie. I was just an employee, like an office worker. So when that contract ended I didn’t have a dime in the bank.

Cristaldi’s interest in Claudia turns out to be not just professional. He also becomes romantically involved, just as Carlo Ponti did with Sophia Loren. The couple get married in Las Vegas in 1966, but that’s in the future.

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i soliti ignoti

1. I soliti ignoti

1958. A scene featuring Claudia Cardinale in one of her earliest roles (Italian, no subtitles but you'll have no problem getting the gist of what's going on).

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il bell'antonio

2. Il bell’Antonio

1960. The original Italian trailer without subtitles. But you don't need to understand the words to grasp the emoting that's much in evidence.

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rocco e i suoi fratelli

3. Rocco e i suoi fratelli

1960. The official trailer for the newly restored version. Claudia hardly gets a look-in but you'll catch a glimpse of a masterpiece.

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la ragazza con la valigia

4. La ragazza con la valigia

1961. A charming collage of clips from the movie with a superimposed soundtrack.

Claudia’s early films

With her son taken care of, Claudia returns to Italy so that Cristaldi can get her career up and running. She faces an immediate challenge: her Italian is little more than rudimentary and she speaks it with a French accent. What’s more, her slightly husky voice is regarded as not ideal by directors. So in most of her early films, Claudia’s voice is dubbed.

I didn’t speak a word of Italian. In my first movies everyone was shouting and I couldn’t understand anything. Then I had a small part in a Visconti film [Rocco e i suoi fratelli, 1960], in a very violent fight scene. Visconti took a megaphone and said, ‘Don’t kill my la Cardinale!’ I realised, my God, he’s noticed me!

Still, that’s a side issue for Cristaldi; he has big plans for her. Europe’s leading sex symbol of the moment is Brigitte Bardot – BB as she’s known to her fans. Claudia is to be Italy’s riposte. In a memorable one-liner, Bardot observes: “After ‘BB’ comes ‘CC’, no?” It could have turned into a fierce rivalry, but Claudia’s not in the mood to be competitive:

I was a fan of Brigitte Bardot. Who could not be? When I was young she was my idol. I loved her elegance and her natural power. She was unique.

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Claudia Cardinale looks at herself in the mirror

Claudia Cardinale looks at herself in the mirror

1961. Claudia perfects her look prior to strutting her stuff, and the set-up gives her just about every angle. That's all I know about this shot other than that there is an International Magazine Service copyright notice dated 18 December 1961 on the back of the print.

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Claudia Cardinale at the premiere of Les Lions Sont Lachés

Claudia Cardinale at the premiere of Les Lions Sont Lachés

1961. The cinema marquee in the background suggests that the occasion is the premiere of Les Lions Sont Lachés, a film in which Claudia Cardinale stars opposite Henri Verneuil. You can find out more about the paparazzi here. The back of the print is stamped by Europress and Publi-Press. The latter includes the name "H. Havrenne", who presumably is the photographer.

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Claudia Cardinale and Brigitte Bardot at an awards ceremony

Claudia Cardinale and Brigitte Bardot at an awards ceremony

1961. On the back of the print are Agence Dalmas and International Magazine Service copyright notices, the latter dated 21 December 1961. The photo was likely taken at the David di Donatello Awards held on 30 July that year by the Accademia del Cinema Italiano. Brigitte Bardot was Best Foreign Actress and Claudia Cardinale received a Special David for her performance in La ragazza con la valigia.

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Claudia Cardinale and Brigitte Bardot slug it out in a scene from Les Pétroleuses

Claudia Cardinale and Brigitte Bardot go for each other

1971. Claudia Cardinale and Brigitte Bardot slug it out in a scene from Les Pétroleuses (The Legend of Frenchie King). As well as an International Magazine Service copyright notice, there's a photographer's stamp on the back of the photo. Photo by Terry O'Neill.

The two sex symbols eventually slug it out in a hammy cat fight in a scene in Les Pétroleuses (The Legend of Frenchie King, 1971), a French spoof Western. 

Back in 1958, Claudia’s first movie turns out to be something of an international hit – I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street), a black comedy about an inept gang of thieves. She plays Carmelina, the young sister of one of the gang members, kept under lock and key lest she lose her virginity before she gets married. This is one of the films in which Claudia’s voice is dubbed, a topic on which director Mario Monicelli’s comments are revealing:

First of all because in Italy we often shoot with actors who are not professional. For example the guy who plays the Sicilian, the jealous brother Ferribotte, was not an actor. He was a dishwasher in a restaurant I would frequent. The guy who plays Capannelle, the sporty guy, wasn’t an actor either. I think he was a bricklayer. Of course Cardinale wasn’t an actress then either. But this way of shooting films was quite common in Italy, to use actors taken from the street. 

Cristaldi proves to be an astute manager and lands his protégé roles in a series of well regarded movies including Un maledetto imbroglio (The Facts of a Murder, 1958), Il bell’Antonio (Handsome Antonio, 1960) and La ragazza con la valigia (Girl with a Suitcase, 1961). LIFE magazine (29 September 1961 issue) reports that La ragazza “provides the first starring role for Claudia Cardinale, who at 22 is not yet much of an actress – but much of a delicious dish.” It fails to notice that Claudia takes acting seriously and though marketed as a sex symbol, doesn’t drink or smoke or have romances with her leading men: “I never made sexy things in my films. It is so stupid all this sex talk.” Well, yes and no…

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A seamstress makes a final adjustment to the bow on the gown Claudia Cardinale is about to model

Claudia Cardinale at Nina Ricci, Paris

1962. On the back of the photo, which is printed on Paris Match Marie Claire paper, is an International Magazine Service copyright notice dated 28 February 1962. On 10 February that year Claudia Cardinale worked as a model at Nina Ricci’s fashion house in Paris according to Getty Images. Here, a seamstress makes a final adjustment to the bow.

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Claudia Cardinale admires herself in the mirror while a seamstress adjusts her gown

Claudia Cardinale at Nina Ricci, Paris

1962. On the back of the photo are copyright notices for Agence Dalmas and International Magazine Service, the latter dated 1 March 1962. On 10 February that year Claudia Cardinale worked as a model at Nina Ricci’s fashion house in Paris. Here a seamstress is hard at work while Claudia admires herself in the mirror.

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Claudia Cardinale surrounded by Nina Ricci staff preparing her for a fashion show

Claudia Cardinale at Nina Ricci, Paris

1962. On the back of the photo are copyright notices for Agence Dalmas and International Magazine Service, the latter dated 1 March 1962. On 10 February that year Claudia Cardinale worked as a model at Nina Ricci’s fashion house in Paris. Here she is surrounded by staff preparing her for the show.

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Claudia Cardinale models a gown and matching shawl by Nina Ricci

Claudia Cardinale at Nina Ricci, Paris

1962. On the back of the photo are copyright notices for Agence Dalmas and International Magazine Service, the latter dated 28 February 1962. On 10 February that year Claudia Cardinale worked as a model at Nina Ricci’s fashion house in Paris. Here she's made it out of the dressing room and smiles at the photographer as the invited audience look on.

A year of contrasts and achievement

1963 is the year that Claudia Cardinale stakes her claim for a place in the movie pantheon. That year she works simultaneously with Luchino Visconti and Federico Fellini, and what a contrast they prove to be:

Visconti, precise, meticulous as if we were in the theatre, spoke to me in French and wanted me brunette with long hair. Fellini, messy and without a script, spoke to me in Italian and wanted me blonde.

Mid-1960s. Claudia Cardinale poses opposite a wind machine.

Luchino Visconti’s fabulous historical epic, Il gattopardo (The Leopard) tells the story of a fading aristocratic way of life. It is set at the beginning of the 1860s when Garibaldi’s landing in Sicily portends the unification and modernisation of Italy. Claudia, at her most radiant, stars alongside Burt Lancaster (cast against type and dubbed into Italian and absolutely magnificent) and Alain Delon. She says:

I was lucky to have spent so much time with Visconti. We were always together, I was always at his house, we went away together, we watched the San Remo festival together. … Before filming started we did all the rehearsals, with all the cast, around a table. It all had to be perfect. … But that dress, my God! Everything was antique. When I finished the movie, I had blood all round my waist. Visconti said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

The film combines superb acting with sumptuous period sets and stunning photography and concludes with a wonderful 45-minute ball scene that apparently takes two weeks to put together. It goes on to win the 1963 Palme d’Or at Cannes as well as achieving commercial success in Europe. Unfortunately the version released in the US is horribly hacked about, poorly dubbed and transferred to an inferior print that dulls its colours. No wonder it sinks without trace. So, if you’re going to watch The Leopard, and you should, make sure you have the restored uncut version.

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leopard trailer

Il gattopardo (The Leopard)

The US trailer, dubbed of course, marketing the movie as a latter-day Gone with Wind, introduced by Burt Lancaster.

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leopard dance scene

Il gattopardo (The Leopard)

Part of the final act of the film, Don Fabrizio’s (Burt Lancaster) unbearably poignant dance with Angelica (Claudia Cardinale).

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otto bfi trailer

Otto e mezzo (8½)

A UK trailer released by the British Film Institute for a new restored version of the film.

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otto claudia

Otto e mezzo (8½)

A collage of clips, all featuring Claudia Cardinale – ravishing but no dialogue.

The intellectual rigour of Il gattopardo is in stark contrast to Otto e mezzo’s (8½) visually expressed emotions. 

In Otto e mezzo, Marcello Mastroianni is Guido Anselmi, a fêted film director, all set to make another box-office hit except for one thing – he doesn’t have a plot. Guido is, to all intents and purposes, Fellini himself and the film, morphing between reality and fantasy, is told from the director’s perspective. Claudia Cardinale plays herself, who also happens to be Guido’s ideal woman – in his imagination, that is. Real life’s another matter. Ms Cardinale has fond memories of Fellini:

Mid-1960s. Claudia Cardinale inspects her makeup.

He was a very funny man. He would pick me up in the car to take me to the set. … He would go down on his knees for me, he adored me, he got angry if he didn’t think I was eating enough. He used to say to me: “You belong to Africa, to the Earth. That’s why you’re my muse.”

He made me feel the centre of the Earth, the most beautiful, the most important. I truly miss him, his sweetness, tenderness, his thin voice even. Acting for him was like an event, there was no script, the set was noisy, it was chaotic, anarchy reigned, yet he was able to isolate himself and get on with the job. You thought you were doing everything spontaneously, any which way you pleased, but at the end of the day you’d done exactly what he had in mind. … With Federico, it was all improvisation.

Otto e mezzo goes on to win an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and is now considered to be one of the greatest and most influential films of all time. As for Claudia, in 1963, she appears on the covers of over 250 European magazines and fan letters pour through her (agent’s) letterbox at the rate of over a thousand a month, including hundreds of marriage proposals. In spite of which, she remains modest about her talent and aware that the careers of movie stars are inherently precarious.

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Luchino Visconti directing Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale

Luchino Visconti directing Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale

1963. Luchino Visconti, an obsessional perfectionist by all accounts, arranges Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale before shooting a scene for Il gattopardo. On the back of the print is an International Magazine Service copyright notice dated 15 July 1963.

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Claudia Cardinale with the screenplay of The Leopard

Claudia Cardinale with the screenplay of The Leopard

1963. Claudia Cardinale sits outside with the screenplay of The Leopard – interesting that it appears to be an English version. The photo was likely taken in the garden of the Palazzo Valguarnera Gangi in Palermo, where much of the shooting took place.

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Claudia Cardinale signing autographs

Claudia Cardinale signs autographs

1963. Claudia Cardinale in the gardens of Palermo's Palazzo Valguarnera Gangi while shooting Il gattopardo. Hands stretch through the palace gates in search of autographs and the actress responds. Photo by Patrice Habans.

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Claudia Cardinale filming a scene for Otto e mezzo

Claudia Cardinale films Otto e mezzo

1963. Claudia Cardinale films a somewhat surreal scene for Federico Fellini's masterpiece, Otto e mezzo.

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Two dressers fasten Claudia Cardinale into a period gown

Claudia Cardinale dresses up

1963. On the back of this publicity shot for Il gattopardo featuring Claudia Cardinale is stamped a quite wonderful coat of arms featuring a leopard. There are also stamps from Pathé-Titanus-20th Century Fox and Imapress and a printed caption (the original is in French):

Claudia CARDINALE tries the dresses she will wear in “THE LEOPARD", a film directed by Luchino VISCONTI and based on Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's novel. The fitting session lasted eight hours. She was surprised that after standing for such a long time, she felt a little tired. But everyone knows that no professional model accepts this type of work for more than four hours.

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Claudia Cardinale being laced up by her dresser on the set of Il gattopardo

Claudia Cardinale being laced up by her dresser

1963. Claudia Cardinale, preparing to shoot a scene for Il gattopardo, puts on a brave face as her dresser laces her up. To get that period hourglass figure requires a viciously constrictive corset and the experience sticks in Claudia's mind: "When I finished the movie, I had blood all round my waist."

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Contact sheet, Il gattopardo

Contact sheet, Il gattopardo

1963. A contact sheet containing shots taken on the set of Il gattopardo. Featured are behind-the-scenes personnel as well as Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale.

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Federico Fellini and Claudia Cardinale on the set of Otto e mezzo

Federico Fellini and Claudia Cardinale on the set of Otto e mezzo

1963. Claudia Cardinale describes Federico Fellini as "a very funny man." Here he shares a joke with her and she's clearly very relaxed and enjoying herself. On the back of the print are copyright notices for Agence de Presse Dalmas and International Magazine Service, the latter dated 17 June 1963.

Once upon a time in Hollywood

It would be surprising had the Hollywood studios not wanted to get in on the action. This puts Claudia (or more likely Cristaldi) in the driving seat when it comes to negotiating contracts:

My main advantage was that I didn’t ask to go to Hollywood, they called me. In those days whenever a new star caught their attention, the Hollywood studios had to have him or her, they tried to monopolise all the stars. They tied you down with a contract and in a way destroyed your career. I tried to defend myself. For instance I refused an exclusive contract with Universal and only signed one contract at a time and managed to survive.

Her debut is in Blake Edwards’ The Pink Panther (1963), a slapstick comedy starring David Niven as a jewel thief and Peter Sellers as an inept detective. Claudia is an exotic princess. Other movies she makes during her stint in Hollywood showcase her versatility. They include Circus World (1964, a drama), Blindfold (1965, a romantic comedy) and The Professionals (1966, a Western).

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Claudia Cardinale surrounded by photographs of herself

Claudia Cardinale surrounded by photographs of herself

1962. Claudia Cardinale beams at the camera, as well she may. On the back of the print is a copyright notice for Guglielmo Coluzzi. He has three films to his credit as a stills photographer on IMDb but he seems to have worked also as a paparazzo. You can find a selection of his work at Rome's il museo del louvre.

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Claudia Cardinale posing for Franco Rossi

Claudia Cardinale posing for Franco Rossi

1967. A caption (translated from the original French) on the back of the print outlines what’s going on in Claudia’s life:

Claudia Cardinale has barely returned from America after completing her role in the film "The Professionals" with Burt Lancaster. She is due in Paris in a few days to make agreements with producer Marcel Pagnol about the film "The Baker's Wife" alongside Zero Mostel. Meanwhile, Claudia is dubbing her film "A Rose for All" (with her in the photo is director Franco Rossi). She has also made a lot of purchases because she is finishing furnishing her new house on Via Flaminia.

It looks like La Femme du Boulanger didn’t go into production. According to IMDb, Franco Rossi’s film, A Rose for All (Una rosa per tutti), was released in the US in 1967 as Every Man’s Woman. There are agency stamps on the back of the print for Pierluigi, Marie Claire and APIS.

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Claudia Cardinale poses for a girl with a camera

Claudia Cardinale poses for a girl with a camera

1965. Claudia Cardinale poses for a girl with a camera, and a pretty meaningful one at that. The identity of the girl behind the camera is a mystery, but the photographer responsible for this shot is identified on the back of the print as Araldo De Crollalanza. (There is also an Ifot International Foto Service stamp.) Unfortunately, there's almost no information about Araldo De Crollalanza online, plus searches tend to throw of a Fascist politician with the same name.

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Claudia Cardinale and Philip Dunne looking through a camera on the set of Blindfold

Claudia Cardinale and Philip Dunne on the set of Blindfold

1965. A caption on the back of the photo sets the scene:

CAMERA EYE
Director Philip Dunne and Italy’s most exciting new star Claudia Cardinale, look through the camera on the set of “Blindfold,” a Universal-Seven Pictures’ suspense comedy in which Miss Cardinale makes her Hollywood film debut opposite Rock Hudson.

Claudia and Rock will go on to become close friends.

But Claudia, no fool and increasingly independent-minded, recognises the dangers as well as the advantages that working in Hollywood entails. Her thinking is spelled out in an article in the 8 July 1966 issue of LIFE magazine headlined Claudia Cardinale, a wary beauty, is afraid Hollywood will ruin her:

Claudia Cardinale has a problem. … Her problem is, now that she has finally agreed to work in Hollywood, she is afraid she will be over-glamorized and exploited as Sophia [Loren] was. Her first Hollywood movie, the recent Blindfold, confirms Claudia’s worst fears. And she has two more coming up soon. Between Hollywood chores, she rushes away to make films in Italy, Spain, Brazil, anywhere but Hollywood. It is a strenuous way to conduct a career, but Claudia, who has won several top acting awards, is trying to grow into a better actress. She gets paid less in Europe. “If you have to give up the money, give it up, she insists. I do not want to become a cliché.”

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pink panther excerpt

1. The Pink Panther

1963. Claudia Cardinale getting plastered and flirting with David Niven – a lovely combination of innocence and seduction.

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pink panther interview

2. The Pink Panther

Claudia Cardinale reminiscing (in French with subtitles) about The Pink Panther and other films, illustrated with video clips.

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once upon a time trailer

3. Once Upon a Time in the West

1968. The original trailer in high definition of Once Upon a Time in the West directed by Sergio Leone and starring Charles Bronson, Jason Robards, Henry Fonda and Claudia Cardinale.

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once upon a time late scene

4. Once Upon a Time in the West

1968. A farewell scene, close to the end of the movie, where the close-ups, the pacing and the soundtrack are just perfect.

After a few years, she does indeed move back permanently to Europe. More significant than any of her Hollywood movies is the spaghetti western in which she subsequently stars: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). Although it proves popular with neither critics nor audiences on its release, it will become a cult classic. And once again, Claudia Cardinale offers insights into what it’s like working, in this case, with director Sergio Leone and co-stars Charles Bronson and Henry Fonda:

I was the only woman in that movie! The thing is … I love music. And that was the first time I worked on a film where the music was composed [by Ennio Morricone] before the cameras started rolling. So before shooting my scenes, Sergio would play the music … which really helped me get into the part. … On set, Charlie Bronson never talked to anybody. And Henry Fonda, we started shooting that love scene in the hammock and he told me he’d never done a love scene before. … It was difficult. His wife was sitting next to the camera, staring at me the whole time.

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Charles Bronson and Claudia Cardinale in Once Upon a Time in the West

Charles Bronson and Claudia Cardinale in Once Upon a Time in the West

1968. Storyline. Once Upon a Time in the West is the story of a woman thrust into a world where threat and violence are everywhere. The three main male protagonists are played by Charles Bronson, Jason Robards and Henry Fonda.

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Claudia Cardinale in Once Upon a Time in the West

Claudia Cardinale in Once Upon a Time in the West

1968. Jill. Claudia Cardinale plays Jill McBain, a former New Orleans prostitute. In spite of that, she turns out to be the moral force at the heart of the movie. She’s a strong woman who sticks to her principles and refuses to be intimidated. We see much of the film through her eyes.

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Sergio Leone photographs Claudia Cardinale

Sergio Leone photographs Claudia Cardinale

1968. Shooting. Once Upon a Time in the West is a spaghetti western. Other than a few scenes in Utah’s Monument Valley, the outdoor action was filmed in Spain, while the indoor scenes were shot at Cinecittà.

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Claudia Cardinale with members of the crew of Once Upon a Time in the West

Claudia Cardinale and followers on the set of Once Upon a Time in the West

1968. Directorial style. The film has a very distinctive style. Tight close-ups of faces contrast with vast panoramas, the oh-so-slow pacing is interrupted by explosions of violence, music plays a vital role in setting the mood but much of the soundtrack relies on natural sounds. Photo by Angelo Frontoni.

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Claudia Cardinale and Jason Robards in Once Upon a Time in the West

Claudia Cardinale and Jason Robards in Once Upon a Time in the West

1968. Soundtrack. One of the film’s most celebrated aspects is the soundtrack by Ennio Morricone. Each of the characters is given their own musical leitmotif, and there’s also one for the spirit of the American West. The haunting wordless vocals for Claudia Cardinale’s character, Jill, are sung by Edda Dell’Orso.

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Claudia Cardinale in Once Upon a Time in the West

Claudia Cardinale in Once Upon a Time in the West

1968. Claudia. As Jill, Claudia Cardinale is under the spotlight as, to all intents and purposes, she plays the only female character. She rises to the challenge by managing to convey a gamut of emotions including loss, disappointment, regret, determination and courage. Photo by Pietro Pascuttini.

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Claudia Cardinale in Once Upon a Time in the West

Claudia Cardinale in Once Upon a Time in the West

1968. Dubbing. When filming was finished, Once Upon a Time in the West was dubbed into several languages, including Italian, French, German, Spanish and English. In the English version, Claudia Cardinale was dubbed by actress Joyce Gordon.

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Claudia Cardinale in Once Upon a Time in the West

Claudia Cardinale in Once Upon a Time in the West

1968. Title and theme. The original Italian title, C’era una volta il West, correctly translates as Once Upon a Time There Was a West. That’s important. The film is not so much about a story that takes place in the American West as it is about a mythical West and how it came to an end with the arrival of capitalism (the railway) and female values (Jill).

Independence and a new direction

Claudia Cardinale married Franco Cristaldi in 1966 but she leaves him to marry film director Pasquale Squitieri in 1975. At the same time she terminates her contract with Vides Films. Unsurprisingly, this impacts her professional as well as her personal life:

Well, it was a shock. Meeting Pasquale I interrupted a system that was built with and around me. Cristaldi was a very important producer and nobody wanted to go against him, nobody wanted to oppose him. So I don’t know if it was he who wanted it or if it was an involuntary consequence, but certainly both Pasquale and I found obstacles in the work. And this is a certain fact.

1965. Claudia Cardinale with Luchino Visconti on the set of Sandra.

The good news is that Claudia’s career is no longer being managed by someone else. She can do as she chooses – not that she’s been exactly passive up to now. Still:

For more than 15 years, I was considered and treated like an object or a project to be manufactured and merchandised. For much of my adult life, I was someone else’s creation – they decided what movies I should play in, what clothes to wear, how to have my hair done and even what friends to see. It was as if I were something operated by remote control.

She believes that “Women, after all, are capable of more in life than making love – but it is very difficult to find intelligent parts for women in films.” She continues to be busy but in Cristaldi’s absence, judging by reviews, the quality of the films in which she stars does drop off to an extent.

Her favourite and most acclaimed movie from the 1980s is Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo (1982). Hertzog’s approach to film-making is both uncompromising and notorious in the industry. He disregards storyboards, emphasises improvisation, and puts his cast and crew into situations like those of the characters in the film.

Set in the early 20th century, the plot of Fitzcarraldo revolves around an Irishman who wants to build the largest opera house in the world in the middle of the Amazon jungle. The making of the movie is the subject of a feature-length documentary – Burden of Dreams (1982). Claudia remembers it as a pretty surreal experience:

But the greatest adventure was with Werner Herzog, making Fitzcarraldo in Peru. I don’t know how I survived! We were in the middle of the jungle. Wild animals. You didn’t know what to eat. All the Indians were naked. My costume was this white dress, and they thought I was a goddess, so I had to be on set all the time otherwise the Indians would leave. When we finished, they came to the airport and brought me gifts. I was crying so much! I love Werner Herzog, but for some of the crew, the experience was so powerful they actually went insane. … We worked in extreme conditions, it was unbearably hot, Jason Robards at some point climbed up a tree and demanded a New York steak to come down. Eventually he was replaced by Klaus Kinski.

Claudia plays Kinski’s lover, a successful brothel-keeper who finances his demented project. Vincent Canby of The New York Times points out that although she doesn’t have much time on screen, she sets the movie’s comic tone and manages to turn Kinski into a “genuinely charming screen presence,” something he’s not exactly noted for. Herzog’s diary seems to confirm this. The director observes that Claudia Cardinale is an antidote to her co-star’s megalomania, “a great help because she is such a good sport, a real trouper, and has a special radiance before the camera. In her presence, [Kinski] usually acts like a gentleman.”

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fitzcarraldo trailer

1. Fitzcarraldo

The original trailer in high definition of Fitzcarraldo directed by Werner Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski, Claudia Cardinale, José Lewgoy and Miguel Ángel Fuentes.

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cardinale herzog conversation

2. Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo notebook

Claudia Cardinale in conversation with Werner Herzog about the notebook he kept while making Fitzcarraldo.

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burden of dreams

3. Burden of Dreams

A minute and a half from Burden of Dreams, Les Blank's feature-length documentary of the tumultuous production of Fitzcarraldo.

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kermode on fitzcarraldo

4. Mark Kermode reviews Fitzcarraldo

A couple of minutes that focus as much on the story behind the film as on the film itself.

Fitzcarraldo wins the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

Claudia Cardinale’s ongoing career and reflections

Claudia Cardinale just keeps going. By 2022 she has 128 credits as a movie actress on IMDb. This in spite of embarking on a career in the theatre in 2000, age 62. Reflecting on her choices and her experience, she says:

As a teenager I was wild, a bit crazy, a tomboy, I got into fistfights with boys just to show them girls can be stronger than them. I have always accepted challenges. When I was young, I remember catching the train after it had pulled out, I used to run and jump on even though I was on the platform, perfectly in time for the departure, just to show I could do it. This attitude also helped me on set when I found myself the only woman surrounded by men, I wasn’t intimidated, I felt able to compete with them. My philosophy of life has always been: If you want, you can. You can’t be weak if you want to do this job. … If you’re not strong, you lose your personality. … You play the role in front of the camera but you have to know who you are afterwards. Inner strength is the most important.

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Claudia Cardinale at her dressing table

Claudia Cardinale at her dressing table

1962. The expression on Claudia Cardinale's face suggests that she's a lot of fun. Love the caricatures of herself flanking the mirror. The photo is printed on Paris Match Marie Claire paper and has an International Magazine Service copyright stamp on the back dated 5 March 1962.

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Claudia Cardinale posing for Franco Rossi

Claudia Cardinale posing for Franco Rossi

1967. A caption (translated from the original French) on the back of the print outlines what’s going on in Claudia’s life:

Claudia Cardinale has barely returned from America after completing her role in the film "The Professionals" with Burt Lancaster. She is due in Paris in a few days to make agreements with producer Marcel Pagnol about the film "The Baker's Wife" alongside Zero Mostel. Meanwhile, Claudia is dubbing her film "A Rose for All" (with her in the photo is director Franco Rossi). She has also made a lot of purchases because she is finishing furnishing her new house on Via Flaminia.

It looks like La Femme du Boulanger didn’t go into production. According to IMDb, Franco Rossi’s film, A Rose for All (Una rosa per tutti), was released in the US in 1967 as Every Man’s Woman. There are agency stamps on the back of the print for Pierluigi, Marie Claire and APIS.

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Claudia Cardinale larking about with Sammy Davis Jr

Claudia Cardinale larking about with Sammy Davis Jr

Around 1963. There's no information at all on this photo or its companion. The subject and style suggest they were taken in Claudia's early days in the US. She and Sammy do seem to be having a rare old time. In both shots, the photographer has ensured that she doesn't look taller than him (Sammy was 5 foot 6 inches tall). Here, he has him crouching and peeping out from behind her.

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Claudia Cardinale larking about with Sammy Davis Jr

Claudia Cardinale larking about with Sammy Davis Jr

Around 1963. There's no information at all on this photo or its companion. The subject and style suggest they were taken in Claudia's early days in the US. She and Sammy do seem to be having a rare old time. In both shots, the photographer has ensured that she doesn't look taller than him (Sammy was 5 foot 6 inches tall). Here, he has him on a stool.

One aspect of that is her determination not to get involved with her co-stars. How else could she possibly reject the advances of the likes of Marcello Mastroianni, Alain Delon and Jean Paul Belmondo?

Yes, they courted me, I confess. But I have always wanted to separate the life of an actress from my private one. So I didn’t let myself be seduced. We were friends, we joked, but I didn’t go further also because I knew how much the stories were embroidered on the sets.

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Claudia Cardinale descending a staircase

Claudia Cardinale descending a staircase

1961. That's a very stylish window. Not sure the carpet is the perfect match. There are agency stamps on the back of the print for Agence Dalmas and International Magazine Service, the latter dated 21 August 1961.

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Claudia Cardinale posing in a doorway

Claudia Cardinale posing in a doorway

1961. This must be part of the same shoot as the staircase photo. Not only is Claudia wearing the same shift dress. There are the same agency stamps on the back of the print for Agence Dalmas and International Magazine Service, the latter dated 21 August 1961.

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Claudia Cardinale in a baroque setting

Claudia Cardinale in a baroque setting

Around 1961. The photographer has signed the back of the print and identified the location as Paris. Photo by Peter Basch.

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Claudia Cardinale posing on a gangway

Claudia Cardinale posing on a gangway

1968. Printed on Paris-Match Marie Claire paper and stamped in ink on the reverse ‘COPYRIGHT / INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE / SERVICE (IMS) / 7 DEC 1968 / TORSGAT. 21 STOCKHOLM SWEDEN’. Also annotated in pencil ‘PM 923 C. Cardinale’.

But she makes an exception for Rock Hudson:

We were very close. At that time in America if it was known that you were gay you could not work in Hollywood. So we pretended to be a couple. Always arm in arm around town. Rock had lunch and dinner at my place a lot. I stayed close to him to the very end.

He in turn is protective of Claudia, aware of her discomfort in the US.

1964. Claudia Cardinale at the Gala of the Union of Artists at Winter Circus, Paris. Photo by Philippe Le Tellier.

Claudia’s awards and achievements

Claudia Cardinale has won numerous awards including a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 1993 Venice Film Festival and a Golden Bear for Lifetime Achievement at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival. Between those two in 1999 she was awarded the Légion d’Honneur in France and later, in 2001 and 2002, corresponding honours in Portugal and Italy.

In March 2000 she became UNESCO goodwill ambassador for the defence of women’s rights.

Want to know more about Claudia Cardinale?

The quotes above are from various sources. Sometimes I’ve combined quotes from different sources because they’re on the same topic. In these cases I’ve used an ellipsis (…) to separate them.

The Continental Actress by Kerry Segrave and Linda Martin has a chapter on Claudia Cardinale. Online sources include:

  • Claudia Cardinale’s website – official but limited
  • Wikipedia – much more detailed, complete with citations
  • IMDb – go-to website for Claudia’s filmography
  • TCM – worth a visit but not available in all countries.

Also online, there are articles about and interviews with Claudia in the Los Angeles Times, The Local, Breaking Latest News, Italy magazine, Euronews, The Guardian, Variety, Dazed and Vanity Fair.

Other topics you might be interested in…

Monica Vitti
Monica Vitti – a sad childhood, a glittering career and a bitter old age
Princess Ira von Fürstenberg – celeb, fashion model, movie star
Tazio Secchiaroli – more than a paparazzo
Yvonne Furneaux as Emma in La Dolce Vita
Yvonne Furneaux – glamorous English export

Filed Under: Films, Stars Tagged With: 8½, Alain Delon, Anneaux d'or, Big Deal on Madonna Street, Blake Edwards, Blindfold, Brigitte Bardot, Burden of Dreams, Cannes Film Festival, Charles Bronson, Circus World, Claudia Cardinale, Ennio Morricone, Federico Fellini, Fitzcarraldo, Franco Cristaldi, Girl with a Suitcase, Goha, Handsome Antonio, Henry Fonda, I soliti ignoti, Il bell’Antonio, Il gattopardo, Jason Robards, Klaus Kinski, La ragazza con la valigia, Luchino Visconti, Marcello Mastroianni, Mario Monicelli, Once Upon a Time in the West, Otto e mezzo, Palme d’Or, Pasquale Squitieri, Rocco and his Brothers, Rocco e i suoi fratelli, Rock Hudson, Sergio Leone, The Facts of a Murder, The Leopard, The Pink Panther, The Professionals, Un maledetto imbroglio, UNESCO, Venice Film Festival, Vides Films, Werner Herzog

Virginia Hill – a seriously bad good-time girl

Virginia Hill, queen of the mob, mixed it with the most powerful and ruthless gangsters of her day. Streetwise, sassy and shameless, she serviced her bosses every which way.

They in return let her in on their secrets and showered her with cash to fund the lifestyle of ostentatious luxury to which she aspired. She was an impostor who gatecrashed Hollywood and seduced (literally as well as metaphorically) its denizens. It was too good to last.

1941. Virginia Hill and friends celebrate Hallowe’en. Read more…

Virginia Hill’s Hollywood heyday

January 1942, and Virginia Hill is having the time of her life. She’s been in Hollywood for a couple of years and she’s the talk of the town. Now, according to Modern Screen, she’s about to marry actor John Carroll:

It’ll be a great day for Hollywood when John Carroll takes plumpish, black-eyed Virginia Hill to be his blushing bride. If the pair do bounce to the altar, John will bring into the great Movietown family the most fantastic personality it has known since Bogus Prince Romanoff was in his prime.

At 23, Virginia Hill is a woman of mystery. Her wealth is inestimable and untraceable, though it is surmised her three marriages (the first occurred when she was 14) might have had something to do with it. Her extravagances are notorious. A $1,000 evening gown, the gem of Designer Irene’s fall collection, draped her body only three or four times before she gave it to a friend. Other gowns for which she pays from $100 to $400 are often discarded without being worn at all.

Her parties are reminiscent of something that went out with the Romans. Starting with two or three couples, Virginia frequently finds herself winding up the night hosting a mob of fifty. One evening she rented the Mocambo and its entire staff for a private shindig. Conservative estimators say that little social cost her well over $3,000 [roughly equivalent to $50,000 in today’s money]!

It’s always cash on the line for Virginia Hill. She travels with gobs of it tied in a rubber band. She’s never used a checkbook even to pay bills for her Chicago apartment, her New York and Hollywood hotel suites, automobile upkeep, maid and secretary.

There’s no denying, Husband Number Four will have to step fast to keep pace with the mad, exciting Miss Hill. But if anyone can do it, John Carroll is the boy. He’s not exactly a rest cure, himself!

In the event, the marriage never materialises. It’s a lucky escape for John. Virginia’s days of blushing at anything are way behind her. With Miss Hill, John would have got more than he’d bargained for. A lot more. Her past is murky, her future fraught with danger. The truth is she’s entangled with the mob and she’s the girlfriend of notorious gangster, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel.

November 1941. Virginia Hill, cash dispenser. Read more…

Virginia Hill’s back story

Virginia Hill grows up in Bessemer, Alabama, an industrial city dominated by steelmaking. One of ten brothers and sisters, she is something of a wild child, perhaps because she’s lonely and insecure. Her father remembers how she tried to buy friendship:

One time Tabby [his nickname for her] charged several alarm clocks to my account, and then gave them away to the playmates who looked up to her, just as her frequent guests of ‘The Nightclub World’ were to do later for Tabby’s generosity.

It’s a pattern that will persist throughout her life. Her parents divorce when she is 14, and she moves with her mother to Marietta, Georgia. She can’t get away soon enough. Age 17, she marries George Rodgers, four years her senior, and heads for Chicago, where she promptly dumps him.

She soon falls in with the city’s mafia, sleeping her way straight to the top. Key to her progress is Joe Epstein, Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik’s chief accountant (Guzik is the Chicago Outfit’s treasurer and financial wizard). Epstein takes Virginia under his wing and introduces her to various prominent members of the gang. She’s well able to take things on from there herself.

At a 1936 Christmas party thrown by Charlie Fischetti (Al Capone’s cousin), she gives blow jobs to her host and several other top mobsters right in front of the guests as well as Fischetti’s wife – classy. It’s around this time that she starts keeping a diary of all the financial shenanigans she’s in on.

The following year, she is dispatched to infiltrate the New York mafia and find out whether they’re paying their dues to their Chicago counterparts. She loses no time in embarking on an affair with Joe “Adonis” Doto, one of the New York mob’s two most powerful bosses (the other is Charles “Lucky” Luciano).

In 1938 she becomes a courier and dealmaker. It’s the start of years of zigzagging across the US between New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Mexico, often with her brother Chick, running cash and drugs and sleeping around. In Mexico, among others she sleeps with the son of a Mexican finance minister in order to milk him for information and get him on side. In Hollywood, Errol Flynn is just one of the visitors to her bedroom.

Mid-1940s. Portrait of Virginia Hill. Read more…

Bugsy Siegel

Passing through Alabama in January 1939, Virginia takes the opportunity to seduce, marry and divorce in short order Osgood Griffin, a naive 19-year-old football player and, crucially, a son of one of the state’s richest families. The divorce enables her not just to get her hands on some useful alimony but also to marry (but only briefly) Carlos “Miguelito” Valdez. The big deal here is that it gives Valdez, a Mexican national, the right to enter the US in order to consolidate the drug alliances he and Virginia have established. 

While all this is going on, she hitches up with John “Handsome Johnny” Roselli, whom the Chicago outfit have sent out West to work under Jack Dragna, the boss of the of the Los Angeles crime family. Roselli becomes the conduit through which Virginia will report the goings-on she finds out about back to the bosses in Chicago, who in turn will relay the information to their New York counterparts.

Virginia also has a brief affair with Pasquale “Pat” DiCicco, an agent, movie producer, occasional actor and playboy, as well as an alleged mobster working for Luciano. His ex-wife, actress Thelma Todd, died in 1935 under suspicious circumstances.

DiCicco introduces Virginia to actor George Raft, known (like Frank Sinatra) for his mafia connections, who in turn puts her back in touch with Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel – his nickname a reference to his reputation as a thug with a short fuse who gets off on violence and killing. He has graduated from petty extortion to being an associate in the New York syndicate run by Adonis, Luciano and Meyer Lansky.

Virginia first met Bugsy in a Brooklyn bar in NYC in February 1937. They spent the next night fucking each other’s brains out. Even as an experienced practitioner, she will remember it as the best sex she ever had. Later that year, the lovers had to part when Siegel was dispatched by his New York partners to Los Angeles to look after their gambling, racetrack and bookmaking rackets on the West Coast.

Bugsy is regarded as a dangerously loose canon by the mobs in Chicago and New York and not to be trusted. So Dragna instructs Virginia to get into bed (literally as well as metaphorically) with him and report back about what he’s up to. She’s more than happy to oblige and it’s not long before she and her brother Chick move into a house with Bugsy.

It’s the start of probably the best five or so years of Virginia’s life. Not only is she hitched with her favourite (albeit violent and abusive but perhaps that’s part of the attraction) lover, but thanks to her underworld connections she has the spondoolies to fund the lavish parties and publicity on which she thrives. What’s more, Bugsy is a good looking guy who can turn on the charm and whose underworld associations give the Hollywood community a pleasurable frisson. It’s all fine and dandy.

1947. Virginia Hill in Paris with her mother. Read more…

The end of the affair

But all good things must come to an end, and so it proves for Virginia Hill and Bugsy Siegel.

He is a slick operator with delusions of grandeur and an eye to the main chance that will be his downfall. In 1944 he spots the potential to turn an unpromising plot on a dusty road on the edge of Las Vegas into a glamorous casino hotel financed by the mob. Back then the city was nothing like the gambling Mecca it would go on to become.

The plot is being developed by Billy Wilkerson, founder/owner of The Hollywood Reporter, Tinseltown’s first daily entertainment trade newspaper, and various nightclubs. But he’s run into financial problems, which gives Bugsy and his associates the chance to step in. In May 1946, Bugsy, increasingly obsessed with the project and arrogant to boot, engineers Wilkerson’s departure and his own appointment as president with total control.

But whereas Wilkerson has experience of construction projects, Bugsy doesn’t. He’s out of his depth. This combined with constant meddling and insistence on upping the specification at every turn means that costs start to spiral out of control. Meanwhile, in spite of multiple ongoing infidelities on both their parts, he’s still besotted with Virginia. His name for the hotel, Flamingo, is apparently inspired by his nickname for her.

She, though, prefers the razzmatazz of Hollywood to the rudimentariness of Las Vegas and knows which side her bread is buttered. Bottom line: she’s not prepared to move permanently to Las Vegas but she does make regular visits that combine passion (bonking and bust-ups) and business. The business in this case is espionage. The mob are worried about the overruns and suspect Bugsy of taking a cut without telling them. Virginia’s job is to record the costs in her diary and report back on how things are going and how the money is being spent.

Caving in to pressure from his backers, Bugsy opens the Flamingo in December 1946 before it’s finished. It’s a disaster. The hotel has to be closed again post haste and another round of funding agreed. The Flamingo reopens in March 1947 and this time it’s a very different story. The punters and the money pour in. But this brings with it another problem for Bugsy. The mob reckon it’s payback time and they’re not prepared to hang around.

When Bugsy stalls, they lose their patience. Virginia is summoned to Chicago and on 16 June put on a flight to Paris. She tells Bugsy she’s there to buy wine for the Flamingo. In practice, she’s out of the way for the final act of the drama.

Four days later at around 22:30, Bugsy enters 810 N Linden Drive, Rudolf Valentino’s old house in Beverly Hills, now rented by Virginia. He makes his way to the sitting room, turns on the lights and makes himself comfortable on the sofa to catch up on the day’s paper. Perfect for the assassin lurking in the shadows outside. The first shot explodes through the window and hits Bugsy in the head, blowing his eye 15 feet from his body. The subsequent bullets crash into his body, breaking his ribs and tearing up his lungs. It’s like something out of The Godfather.

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bugsy siegel

1. Bugsy Siegel – American Mombster

A brief and entertaining biography of Virginia Hill’s favourite lover.

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kefauver committee

2. The Kefauver Committee

An overview of organized crime in the US and the Kefauver Committee’s attempts to tackle it.

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virginia hill

3. The Kefauver hearings

Extracts from the television coverage of the Kefauver hearings including a clip of Virginia Hill.

Virginia Hill gets her comeuppance

From here on, it’s going to be mostly downhill (pun intended) for Virginia. Bugsy’s demise may have come as no surprise to her, but it still leaves her shaken and insecure. She’s still up to her old tricks, including an affair with wealthy 21-year-old heir Nicholas Fouilette. But within months she’s taken an overdose, the first of at least four suicide attempts that year. Rumour has it that she’s terrified that she’ll be next on the mob’s hit list because, with her diary and everything else she knows, she’s just too much of a risk.

Still, she returns to the US and meets her sponsor, Joe Epstein a couple of times. He wants her to hand over her diary; she won’t. The following year, she settles for a time in Mexico City but soon she’s inexorably drawn back to the US. In early 1950, she travels to Sun Valley, Idaho, where she meets and marries ski instructor Hans Hauser, a former world champion downhill skier from Austria. That November she gives birth to a son, Peter, and the family moves to a luxurious home in Spokane, Washington. It’s around this time that the IRS seems finally to have noticed that Virginia’s and her husband’s lavish lifestyle has no apparent means of support.

1951 is the year it all comes crashing down. In March, Virginia is summoned before the Kefauver Committee, which is investigating organized crime. The hearing is televised, and Virginia puts in a performance to fit the occasion. Her cheeky, evasive, sometimes vulgar answers to the prosecution make an entertaining change from the bland, stodgy, often bureaucratic language used by the other courtroom participants. Try this:

6 July 1951. Virginia Hill chatting at El Paso Airport. Read more…

Senator Tobey: “But why would Joe Epstein give you all that money, Miss Hill?”
Virginia Hill: “You really want to know?”
Senator Tobey: “Yes, I really want to know.”
Virginia Hill:  “Then I’ll tell you why. Because I’m the best cocksucker in town.”
Senator Kefauver: “Order! I demand order!”

Writer and director Robert C Ruark reckoned that Virginia’s testimony “created a new art form” and observed that:

Virginia Hill seems to have been an Alice in a wonderland of illegality…. Any secrets she holds are safe, because this is a girl who don’t know nothin’ about nobody and is little loath to say so.

On her way out of the courtroom when her questioning was over, she slugs Marjorie Farnsworth, a reporter for the New York Journal-American and screams at the others “I hope the atom bomb falls on every one of you!”

She leaves as something of a celebrity but it’s a Pyrrhic victory. The IRS and the Immigration and Naturalization Service have Virginia Hill and Hans Hauser in their respective sights. He is not a US citizen and when he is ordered to leave the US voluntarily, the couple go into hiding. In July the IRS slaps a demand for $161,000 on Virginia for unpaid income taxes for the years 1942 through 1947. In August they seize and auction her personal belongings but the sale raises just $41,000.

By then, Virginia has fled to Europe, never to return to the US.

Curtains for Virginia Hill

Virginia spends the last 15 years of her life in Europe. She’d like to return to the US but she can’t do a deal to avoid prison. She also tries to go to Cuba and Mexico, but her attempts are barred. In the mid-1960s she separates from her husband and moves with Peter to a modest hotel in Salzburg. On 22 March 1966 she leaves her home and fails to return. Two days later, her body is found in the snow, alongside a tree-shaded brook just outside the city. Two days later, the Los Angeles Times reports:

Virginia Hill’s Death Ruled Poison Suicide SALZBURG, Austria (UPI)

Virginia Hill, onetime glamour girl of the American underworld, took her own life by poison, an Austrian court ruled Friday. A farewell note said the 49-year-old auburn-haired beauty was “fed up with life.” 

A medical examiner who performed an autopsy ruled she died of poisoning, and a coroner’s court ruled her death was suicide. Her body was found Thursday in a mountain meadow outside the city near a night club. She had been missing two days. Miss Hill, estranged from Austrian ski instructor Hans Hauser, the last of four husbands spent her last years living in a rooming house on a small side street with her 15-year-old son who worked as an apprentice waiter. Friends said she had left a will with a lawyer in Switzerland. Miss Hill was born in Lipscomb, Ala. She rocketed into the headlines when Benjamin (Bugsie) Siegel was shot to death in her Beverly Hills home in 1947. She was in Paris at the time.

Given her previous seven suicide attempts, the pathologist’s verdict is probably correct. But rumours continue to circulate that shortly before her death she tried to blackmail Joe Adonis, then exiled in Italy. And that he subsequently sent his henchmen to force-feed her the drugs.

7 July 1951. Virginia Hill at Denver Airport. Read more…

The photos

You’ve probably noticed that the quality of most of the photos of Virginia Hill here is not up to aenigma’s usual standard. Most of the photos on aenigma are studio shots or the product of planned outdoor sessions, taken by great photographers using great equipment. They are posed, lit and enhanced in post-production (typically in the darkroom and/or by retouching the negatives). Their purpose is to promote a movie, a star or a look by creating an aspirational, even iconic, image.

That may have been the case with the head-and-shoulders portrait of Virginia Hill but the print looks like it has been made from a second- or third-generation negative. The print itself has also been heavily retouched and coarsened to make it suitable for reproduction in low-quality newsprint. The cropping marks further detract from the image.

With all the distracting detail in the background, the Hallowe’en party photo, while clearly posed, is an informal snapshot, which could have been taken by a studio or a press photographer. It’s a bit of fun. The photo of Virginia perched on a sideboard console hasn’t been so messed about but again it’s little more than a snapshop, likely taken at her home.

The photos of Virginia at Denver Airport and in Paris are clearly press shots, snapped on location in less-than-ideal conditions and using relatively cheap cameras. The photographers in these cases are the forerunners of the paparazzi.

The shot of Virginia at El Paso airport is a wirephoto. Wirephoto technology was introduced in 1935 and continued to be used by the newspaper industry until the mid-1970s. It involved scanning an original print and transmitting it over telegraph or telephone wires, a bit like a fax. Wirephotos typically suffer from poor contrast and lack sharpness. A wirephoto usually has an extended caption along one of its borders that is integrated into the image itself.

Want to know more about Virginia Hill?

There are lots of accounts of the life and exploits of Virginia Hill and a good many discrepancies between them. I’ve done my best to take a balanced view but who knows where the truth lies.

As part of my research, I read a couple of books: 

  • Virginia Hill – Mafia Molls – Beautiful Broads With Brass Balls: Volume 3 by Joe Bruno and Lawrence Venturato
  • We Only Kill Each Other: The Life and Bad Times of Bugsy Siegel by Dean Jennings.

The former is wonderfully scurrilous and sensational and casts its two protagonists in pretty much the worst possible light. The latter, on which the 1991 movie, Bugsy, starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, is based, takes the opposite view. It gives Bugsy and Virginia the benefit of the doubt whenever possible and indeed suggests on the back cover that Bugsy was “The man who invented Las Vegas.”

The TV movie, The Virginia Hill Story (1974) starring Dyan Cannon, takes a similarly romantic view, characterising her as a naive girl eventually betrayed by her movie magazine fantasies of glamour and romance – courageous and vulnerable, sexy and tender.

Other sources include Newspapers, Wikipedia, Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, The Mob Museum and Nevada Public Radio.

Other topics you might be interested in…

Ava Gardner – the journey to Hollywood
Fashion and movie photos – why collect them?
Movie stars of the 1940s – talent, savvy, looks and luck
Barbara Stanwyck in The Two Mrs Carrolls
Unsafe sex – the starlet’s dilemma

Filed Under: Collecting, Press, Stars Tagged With: Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, Billy Wilkerson, Bugsy Siegel, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, Charlie Fischetti, Errol Flynn, Hans Hauser, Jack Dragna, Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik, Joe “Adonis” Doto, John “Handsome Johnny” Roselli, Kefauver Committee, Meyer Lansky, Pasquale “Pat” DiCicco, Virginia Hill

Brenda Mee by Thurston Hopkins – a glimpse into another world

Brenda Mee by Thurston Hopkins
1953. Brenda Mee. Photo by Thurston Hopkins. Read more.

Whoever’s heard of Brenda Mee? I hadn’t until I came across this image, which gave me waves of nostalgia. It’s such a time-capsule image – her demure look, the bowler-hatted, be-suited pedestrian, the vintage car. And she turns out to be Miss Great Britain 1953.

It’s a classic case of what, for me, makes collecting photos so compelling. You see an image and want to find out the story behind it. Before long, you’re pursuing all sorts of lines of inquiry and making all sorts of discoveries. In this case, the lady herself, the times in which she lived, the news media in which the photo appeared, the guy who snapped the photo, and the world of beauty contests and the holiday camps, which hosted many of them.

The subject – Brenda Mee

The image is published in Picture Post to illustrate an article about The Beauty Contest Business. But for the scoop on Brenda Mee, look no further than the Sunday 30 August 1953 edition of London’s Weekly Dispatch:

A LOVELY girl stepped off the train at Euston Station one day last week. In her handbag was a cheque for £1,000. In her luggage was a magnificent silver bowl. In her eyes was the sparkle and delight of a girl who had just won the Sunday Dispatch-Morecambe National Bathing Beauty Contest. Brenda Mee, a 20-year-old blonde who was born at Derby but lives at South Kensington, is a photographers’ model and mannequin. She was chosen as the 1953 winner from among 40 finalists from all over Britain at Morecambe last week.

“What am I going to do with the money?” said Brenda. “First I shall go on a mild shopping spree and buy some clothes. Then I shall bank the rest of the money and think about it.”

Television newsreel as well as Movietone, Gaumont-British, Universal, Pathé, and Paramount news reels recorded her success at Morecambe. “I hope my newsreel and television showing is good,” says Brenda. “I would like to have a film test. It is one of my ambitions to get into films.” … In October Brenda will be “Miss Great Britain” in the “Miss World” contest in London.

1948. Fashion shot at the Victoria & Albert Museum, close to Brenda Mee’s flat. Photo by John Deakin. Read more.

The Miss World title and film-star ambition will prove a step too far. Still, Brenda Mee is currently sharing a cosy little basement flat in Drayton Gardens, South Kensington with Marlene Dee, 1951’s Miss Great Britain. How many hopeful Romeos must be beating their way that front door?

Our Brenda has come a long way in a short time. She’s first mentioned in the Saturday 15 April 1950 edition of the Derby Daily Telegraph, which announces that she’s just won the Derby finals of the nationwide contest to find Britain’s “Neptune’s Daughter.” The pageant is named after the Esther Williams film of the same name that’s just been released in the UK:

Sponsored by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Ltd., and the Associated British Cinemas, Ltd., in conjunction with a firm of American soft-drink manufacturers, the prizes for the winner of the national contest include a two-week trip to Hollywood, with air transport, perfume, wardrobe and even luggage cases provided free of charge.

The article also reveals (can you believe it?) that she’s living with her parents at 11 Swinburne Street, Derby, a modest Victorian semi. During 1951 she gains more experience but limited success as a beauty contestant before making her breakthrough in 1952.

1953 will prove to be her glory year though she will continue as a beauty contestant and model for a while longer. She will even appear as a lovely on a TV quiz show. Then she disappears from view, except for a brief mention in the Thursday, 5 June 1958 edition of the Birmingham Daily Post, where we learn that she “has brought with her on a visit to England, from her home in Melbourne, her three-month-old son Lloyd Anthony, who will be christened in August at Derby, where Miss Mee formerly lived.” Her husband is Mr. Ludwig Berger, an Australian company director. And that’s that.

The times

So, what’s going on around Brenda Mee? Inspired by 1951’s Festival of Britain, the country is gradually rebuilding after the bombing raids, privations and misery heaped on it by World War II. Still, London is a very different city from now. There are gaping holes where bombs fell, shop windows are dark at night, luxury goods are in short supply, and traffic is a thing of the future. It’s a world that’s buttoned up literally and metaphorically. Except, that is, for the likes of Francis Bacon, Augustus John and John Deakin who frequent bohemian Soho’s notorious Colony Club.

1951. Picture Post prepares the nation for the Festival of Britain.

This year, 1953, the big event in London and the UK is the coronation of Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey. Also in the news are Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, who become the first men to reach the summit of Mount Everest. And Ian Fleming publishes his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale. For the proverbial man on the Clapham omnibus, some of the most welcome news may be that the rationing of sugar and sweets are coming to an end (food rationing won’t end completely until next year) and the emergence of the pneumatic Sabrina.

The news media and photojournalism

Although 1953 is the year that the House of Lords votes in favour of commercial television, only about one in three households have a TV and there’s only the one TV channel. Forget daytime TV – that’s decades away (27 October 1986 to be precise). Children’s programmes begin late afternoon followed by “Toddler’s Truce,” a TV blackout from 18:00 to 19:00 so that parents can put their children to bed before prime-time television kicks in. It’s a classic case of Auntie’s (as the BBC is affectionately known) paternalism!

So the main sources of news are newspapers, magazines, radio (wireless in the lingo of the day) and newsreels. Newsreels are short documentary films, containing both news stories and items of topical interest. They are shown in cinemas before the film the audience has come to see. And in the fifties, people do flock to the cinema.

The leading British news magazine is Picture Post (LIFE magazine is its US equivalent). As well as providing insights into the big social and political issues of the time, it covers many aspects of day-to-day life – from Life in the Gorbals to The Beauty Contest Business.

At the peak of its popularity in the 1940s, Picture Post is read by almost half the UK population, making it the window on the world for “the man on the street.” But a combination of the left-leaning views of its editors and the growth of TV ownership will bring about the magazine’s decline and, in 1957, its ultimate demise.

One of the things that’s remarkable about Picture Post is its pioneering approach to photojournalism. It pairs its writers and photographers and sends them out to work together as colleagues rather than as competitors. The result more often than not is a combination of words and pictures that creates compelling, immersive stories. The contributing photographers include Bill Brandt, Bert Hardy and Thurston Hopkins. They are in certain respects the British equivalents of the French humanist photographers who roamed Paris after World War II.

The Cats of London. Photos by Thurston Hopkins published in the 24 February 1951 edition of Picture Post.

According to David Mitchell, writing in The Guardian:

Stefan Lorant, first editor of Picture Post and pioneer of photo-journalism, had an unusual interviewing technique: “A photographer would come to me and I would say, ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’. If he did not know of him, I would realise he had no intellectual background. If he was ignorant of Shakespeare or Mahler – out! Never mind what his pictures were like.” Thurston Hopkins would have passed such a cultural inquisition with flying colours.

The photographer

Thurston Hopkins is born in 1913 and grows up in Sussex, the son of middle-class parents (his father is a prolific author and enthusiastic ghost hunter). On leaving school he heads for Brighton College of Art to study graphic art. During his time there, he teaches himself photography.

This turns out to be a smart move because the career he envisaged – as a commercial illustrator – fails to take off. During the 1930s newspapers and magazines are switching from illustration to photography, and Thurston follows suit, joining the PhotoPress Agency.

After a stint in the RAF Photographic Unit during World War II, he takes a break, hitchhiking around Europe with his camera. On his return to England, he joins Camera Press (a new agency) but soon decides the place he’d really like to work is Picture Post.

So he creates a dummy issue of the magazine, composed entirely of his own features, and persuades the proprietors to take him on as a freelancer and then, in 1950, as a full-time employee. His most celebrated features include cats of London, children playing on city streets (making the case for dedicated playgrounds) and the Liverpool slums.

When Picture Post shuts its doors for the last time, Thurston will become a successful advertising photographer, working in his studio in Chiswick, west London, and will take up teaching at the Guildford School of Art. In retirement, he will return to painting and live to age 100, survived by his wife Grace, also a photographer, and their two children.

Dorothy Lamour promotional shot for Paramount Pictures
1937. Dorothy Lamour – from beauty queen to movie star. Read more.

Beauty contests

Beauty contests have a long history – it’s possible to trace them back to the Middle Ages. But the birth of the version we recognize today dates from 1921, according to the Pageant Center’s The History of Pageants. That’s the year when Atlantic City hotel proprietors come up with a ruse to tempt tourists to stick around after Labor Day. They organize a “pageant” that includes a “National Beauty Tournament” to choose “the most beautiful bathing beauty in America.”

The branding is a masterstroke. Take a bow, Herb Test, a local newsman, who comes up with a killer name: “Let’s call her Miss America!” Eastern newspaper editors are invited to run photo contests to pick winners to represent their communities, and eight finalists compete for the honour to be the first Miss America.

After a promising start, the pageant goes offline for four years following the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. But by the mid-1930s it has come roaring back and, surprise, surprise, attracted the attention of Hollywood studio bosses such as Howard Hughes. Winners of the new, optional talent competition can now expect invitations for screen tests – but they’d better beware of the starlet’s dilemma. A few beauty pageant contestants, Dorothy Lamour a notable case in point, go on to become movie stars.

The Miss America pageant continues through World War II and in 1948, to the outrage of the photographers, Bebe Shopp becomes the first competition winner to be crowned in a gown rather than a swimsuit.

In 1951, we come full circle back to Great Britain. The first Miss World Pageant is held to promote none other than the Festival of Britain. It’s the brainchild of Eric Morley, who happens to be involved with the Mecca Dance Halls that host many of the country’s beauty contests. Sadly, Marlene Dee, Miss  Great Britain that year, loses out to Miss Sweden, Kiki Haakonson.

Picture Post’s take on The Beauty Contest Business appears in the 7 November 1953 edition. It is written in a nicely trenchant style by Robert Muller with photos by Thurston Hopkins. Here’s an extract:

The Ballyhoo Business. Bare legs, fanfares and revolving stages, flags of all nations and gala press receptions … the sponsors pay out, the public gazes. Photo by Thurston Hopkins published in the 7 November 1953 edition of Picture Post.

Who, you may well ask, pays for these beauty feasts, what do they get out of it, and who wants them anyway? Catch-phrases from pseudo-psychological treatises on the subject (“sublimated virgin worship,” etc.) don’t tell the whole story, for the big beauty contests are run by hard-headed businessmen. It cost Mecca Dancing, Ltd., more than £3,000 to find ‘Miss World,’ and thereby harvest a bushel of publicity. Even if the newspapers ignore Mecca when printing news and pictures of the girls, Morley of Mecca assures us that he possesses “ways and means of telling the country that these wonderful girls everybody is reading about are here because Mecca put them there.”

But Mecca is only an incidental link in a world-wide network of beauty contest sponsors. In most countries the big national beauty competitions are organised by newspapers and magazines as a circulation stunt. The newspapers link up with commercial firms, who offer facilities and pay costs, in the hope of publicising their goods. Beauty winners have thus become a new travelling publicity medium. Travel agents, fashion houses, bathing-suit manufacturers, motion-picture firms adorn beauty queens with their goods, decorate them with their messages. …

The girls themselves, probably unaware that they are exploited as mobile billboards for commercial concerns, are flattered and lulled by the fuss and adoration in which the competitions bathe them, and the models among them – and most beauty queens are models – appreciate the value of a better-class title. An important beauty title is to a model what a university degree is to a young professional man. Even a Miss Liechtenstein would find her services in increased demand, her fees rising. And the girls with film aspirations know that the uphill road to stardom without talent is usually paved with beauty crowns. Finally, a contest as big as the election of ‘Miss World’ carries with it prizes up to £500, for the duration of the contest all expenses are paid, fashion houses occasionally supply dresses, and firms like Mecca pay each girl £1 a day pocket money during the week in which the contest takes place.

But few of the girls give a thought to the back-stage commercial activity that buzzes around their exploits. Some of them are shrewd business-women, but the majority ride a vanity-driven coach, which, they hope, will one day pull up at a film studio, where a Prince Charming producer will offer them stardom and happiness.

The Beauty Contest Business. A page from the feature in the 7 November 1953 edition of Picture Post. Photos by Thurston Hopkins.

Want to know more about Brenda Mee, her life and times?

Pretty much the only place to find out more about Brenda Mee is at The British Newspaper Archive, for which you’ll need a subscription.

If you’re wondering about Britain in the 1950s, there’s a brief and entertaining overview at Retrowow. For something a bit more substantial, check out the series of articles at Historic UK’s Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. And for a year-by-year listing of key events, go to Wikipedia, starting at 1950.

The John Deakin archive is held by bridgeman images, who also have a piece on 60s Soho and the London Art Scene.

Learning On Screen has a history of the British newsreels, while you can watch a selection of examples at British Pathé’s 1950s Britain page. Photoworks provides an introduction to The Picture Post Photographers, which also touches on the history of the publication itself. For more about Thurston Hopkins and Picture Post – see The Guardian obituary and Getty Images’ Picture Post Collection.

The place to find out more about beauty contests is Pageant Center. For the specialist and researcher, there’s also Records of Miss Great Britain at Archives Hub, where there may just be further photos or material about Brenda Mee herself.

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Fashion and movie photos – why collect them?
Paris after World War II – fact, fashion and fantasy
Sabrina in a black strappy dress
Sabrina – Britain’s answer to Marilyn Monroe

Filed Under: Behind the scenes, Collecting, Events, Photographers, Press, Stars Tagged With: beauty pageants, Brenda Mee, Dorothy Lamour, John Deakin, Miss Great Britain, Picture Post, Thurston Hopkins

Ewa Aulin – sex and education

Ewa Aulin’s eyebrow-raising career took her from sex star to school teacher. She’s known first and foremost as the eponymous heroine of Candy – a film so excruciatingly bad that it has acquired cult status with a small band of fans.

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Britt Ekland seated in an armchair in her garden in Rome

Britt Ekland

Around 1966. Like her compatriot Ewa Aulin, Britt Ekland is known as a sex symbol and for her roles in horror movies, of which the most celebrated is The Wicker Man (1973). Her profile is further boosted during the sixties by her marriage to Peter Sellers. According to the handwritten annotation on the back of this photo, it is taken in the garden of Britt's home in Rome. There is also a Team Press Services stamp. Photo by Glauco Cortini.

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Ingrid Thulin

Ingrid Thulin

Around 1965. Ingrid Thulin is of an earlier generation than Ewa Aulin and is also an altogether more serious actress, with 68 credits on IMDb. She is one of Ingmar Bergman's favourite actresses as well as appearing in films by Alain Resnais and Luchino Visconti – The Damned (1969). There is an International Magazine Service stamp on the back of the photo. Photo by Franco Pinna.

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Pia Degermark

Pia Degermark

1969. Outside her native Sweden, Pia Degermark is known primarily for her role in Elvira Madigan (1967), for which she wins the Award for Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

Pia Degermark, a 19 year old Swedish beauty, is currently starring with Chris Jones in the tender, romantic drama “Brief Season” directed by Renato Castellani and produced by Dino De Laurentiis for Columbia Pictures. Pia reached stardom following her success in the Swedish film “Elvira Madigan” directed by Bo Widerberg.

The back of the photo has a Pierluigi agency stamp. Photo by Emilio Lari.

Ewa was one of a number of actresses to emerge from Sweden to become stars on the 1960s European-movie scene. Her compatriots included Anita Ekberg, Anna Karina, Britt Ekland, Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullmann and Pia Degermark.

Ewa herself appeared in 17 films between 1965 and 1973. But Candy, her fifth, was the one.

Ewa Aulin as Candy
1968. Ewa Aulin as Candy. Read more.

Ewa Aulin is Candy

The first we hear of Candy and Ewa in the UK press is in the 27 November 1967 edition of the Daily Mirror:

THE girl who will have a film love affair with Beatle Ringo Starr was named last night. She is Ewa Aulin, an 18-year old Swedish blonde. Ewa, who was voted “Miss Teenager” in Hollywood last year, is to have the title part in “Candy” – Ringo’s first film without the other Beatles.

The movie is released in December 1968 in the US, and in the UK early the following year. The plot is neatly summarized in the 14 February 1969 edition of the Kensington Post:

“Candy” is the story of a beautiful young girl who can’t say no. She has a variety of sexual encounters with a number of bizarre characters including Marlon Brando as a guru, Richard Burton as a boozy Welsh poet, James Coburn as a surgeon, Walter Matthau as a super patriotic American Air Force general, Ringo Starr as a Mexican gardener, boxer Sugar Ray Robinson as a chauffeur and French singer Charles Aznavour as a burglar.

Forget the plot, that’s quite some cast!

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Ewa Aulin getting out of a Rolls Royce

Ewa Aulin in London

1969. The 14 February 1969 edition of the Kensington Post announces that:

“Candy” – the controversial film of the best-selling satire on the art of pornography by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg is to have its European premiere at the Odeon, Kensington, on Thursday, February 20. Guest of honour at the premiere will be Candy herself – 18-year-old Swedish actress Ewa Aulin who will arrive in a pink Rolls Royce.

There's an Araldo Di Crollalanza stamp on the back of the photo.

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Ewa Aulin posing in a London street

Ewa Aulin in London

1969. It looks like Ewa Aulin goes on a photo shoot to promote the UK release of Candy. The London taxi in the background is unmistakable and her fur coat is pretty distinctive too. There are Araldo Di Crollalanza and PIP Photo stamps on the back of the photo.

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Ewa Aulin feeding duck in London

Ewa Aulin in London

1969. Ewa Aulin may end up throwing food to the ducks, but she'll definitely have her audience eating out of her hand. The venue could be Kensington Palace Gardens. She's in London for the premiere of Candy at the Kensington Odeon. There are Araldo Di Crollalanza and PIP Photo stamps on the back of the photo.

The 19 February 1969 edition of the Daily Mirror has a lengthy review, the trajectory of which you can glean from this paragraph:

By the time 1969 staggers from the scene, the British Film Censor will have had to hack his way through a staggering assortment of movies from the downright illicit to the pantingly explicit. This may well be the year the screen caught fire.

Ewa Aulin by Emilio Lari
Around 1970. Ewa Aulin. Photo by Emilio Lari.

Stylistically, Candy is a pure late-sixties spoof with its demented plotline, frenetic pace and caricature characters. It’s utterly absurd and designed to shock – though 50 years on it comes across as just coy and silly. It’s a sex comedy with pretensions that looks backwards and forwards – 1969 is a pivotal year in terms of censorship.

Looking backwards, there’s more than one thread that connects Candy to Barbarella (1968), Roger Vadim’s outrageous sci-fi fantasy starring Jane Fonda. Terry Southern, co-author of the 1958 novel on which Candy is based, is also responsible for the screenplay for Barbarella (though it must said that Candy lacks Barbarella’s chic fantasy).What’s more, Christian Marquand, Candy’s director, starred in Vadim’s Et Dieu… créa la femme (1956), Brigitte Bardot’s breakthrough movie. Both Candy and Et Dieu… are preoccupied with sex, but it’s all very frothy and light-hearted.

Andy Warhol’s Blue Movie (1969), by contrast, is both experimental and transgressive. It’s the first adult erotic film depicting explicit sex to go on wide theatrical release in the US. And it ushers in the Golden Age of Porn – the era in which films such as Deep Throat (1972), The Devil in Miss Jones (1973) and The Opening of Misty Beethoven (1976) will gain a good deal of publicity, attract big audiences and even garner some critical approval. (The advent of the videocassette player, with its potential for private viewing, will spell the end of this particular era.)

More generally, Candy and Blue Movie are manifestations of the sexual revolution of the sixties in the US and western Europe. With “the pill” giving women a way to avoid pregnancy, sex has become more socially acceptable outside the strict boundaries of marriage (homosexuality is also coming out from the shadows, but that’s another story). And that in its turn is part of the counter culture – the social and political backlash against “the establishment”. But while Blue Movie has bona fide counter-culture credentials, it’s debatable whether the same is true of Candy, in spite of the pseudo-intellectual discussion in an article in the 3 October 1969 edition of the Marylebone Mercury:

Ewa Aulin at an event
Around 1969. Ewa Aulin at an event.

We spoke mainly of revolution, other films and the cultural scene in our McLuhanist age, but we did agree that Candy had been mistreated.
I asked Marquand if he would rather have stuck closer to the original ultra-erotic book.

“The formula of the book wasn’t so important to me because personally I’ve progressed beyond the erotic phase,” he said. “I don’t feel any repression about sex – just that it’s natural. …

“Of course. If sex were recognized as a means of free expression then I don’t see how on earth you could have eroticism. For me, eroticism is more of a game of mind than a game of body.

“So in Candy there isn’t such a thing as a game of mind. It’s very stylised. It’s there and she takes it for granted. The types she meets, remember, are schizophrenics and suffer from hang-ups.” …

The satire on American society is fairly pointed, but incidentally the sexual mores of civilisation generally are shown to be somewhat shaky. Candy acts as a catalyst-cum-confessor, a touchstone who reveals quite poignantly the ills of man.

It’s Marquand’s message, something he’s imposed on the Terry Southern-Mason Hoffenberg original sex-classic: erotic urges need to be liberated, repression causes capitalism – repression – perversions, America – perversion – schizophrenia.

This theme is, of course, in the mainstream of revolutionary doctrine, from Reich to Marcuse, that freedom of expression can only come about when we get rid of all sorts of repression, especially sexual repression. “I fight repression,” Marquand told me earnestly, “but I march with my movies.”

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ewa aulin candy tribute

1. She’s So Lovely – Ewa Aulin

A musical tribute to Candy released by Blackpool Records. If you want to watch Ewa in a plethora of predicaments, this is for you.

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candy clip

2. Ewa Aulin meets Marlon Brando

This ten-minute clip from toward the end of Candy captures its mayhem and madness, starting with a magic show and ending with a guru.

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ewa aulin making of candy

3. The making of Candy

Worth a watch in spite of the annoying Bobbie Wygant Archive credit plastered across the screen. Her male co-stars are clearly besotted with Ewa Aulin.

Ewa Aulin, movie star and teacher

Eva Aulin’s take on the movie is more straightforward:

Candy is a moral lesson about a pure, childlike girl who is taken advantage of by selfish, amoral people. She just wants to make people happy. If everyone were like Candy, the world would be a better place.

For her performance in the film, Ewa is nominated for a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer. In the event, the winner is Olivia Hussey for her performance in Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet.

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Ewa Aulin having fun

Ewa Aulin having fun

Around 1970. Ewa Aulin looks like she's letting her hair down, while her elderly companion is wrapped up in the dream world she's induced for him. There is a PIP Photos stamp on the back of the photo.

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Ewa Aulin pulling her hair

Ewa Aulin pulling her hair

Around 1970. What has caught Ewa's attention? She definitely seems to be distracted by something as she pulls at her hair. There is a PIP Photos stamp on the back of the photo.

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Ewa Aulin with a cute puppy

Ewa Aulin with a cute puppy

Around 1970. Ewa blows kisses at an adorable puppy, who looks all set to reciprocate. And who can blame him? There is a Globe Photos stamp on the back of the photo. Photo by Joel Elkins.

Ewa is, of course, a delight to behold – the phrase eye-candy inevitably springs to mind. Certainly no ice maiden, rather every inch a kooky baby doll. She’s ever so fetching with her short, slinky dresses and her long, blonde tresses. And, above all, her wide-eyed innocence.

It’s no surprise that her path to stardom has been via winning a couple of beauty pageants: Miss Teen Sweden in 1965 and Miss Teen International in Hollywood the following year. Immediately prior to Candy, Ewa starred alongside Jean-Louis Trintignant in two giallos: the pop art-style Col cuore in gola (With Heart in Mouth, 1967) and the avant-garde La morte ha fatto l’uovo (Death Laid an Egg, 1968).

While filming Candy, Ewa Aulin secretly marries British musician-turned-filmmaker John Shadow, who casts her in his one and only movie, Microscopic Liquid Subway to Oblivion (1970), which seems to have taken its cue from its title and pretty much disappeared without trace immediately after it’s made.

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Ewa Aulin relaxes

Ewa Aulin relaxes

Around 1970. It looks like Ewa's been caught relaxing on a building site, but perhaps it's just the set of her latest movie. There is an Interfoto Features stamp on the back of the photo.

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Ewa Aulin shows off her coat

Ewa Aulin shows off her coat

Around 1970. Ewa Aulin does a twirl to show off her long, flared coat. It looks like she's in Italy, where most of the films in which she stars in the early-1970s are produced. There are Araldo di Crollalanza and Globe Photos stamps on the back of the photo.

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Ewa Aulin at a newspaper kiosk in France

Ewa Aulin in France

Around 1970. Ewa must be something of a linguist – she makes films in English and Italian as well as her native Swedish. And in this photo she appears to be reading a French journal. It looks like this is part of a publicity shoot rather than a paparazzi shot. There is a Globe Photos stamp on the back of the photo. Photo by Joel Elkins.

After Start the Revolution Without Me (1970), an unmemorable period comedy, and a handful of Italian giallos and sex comedies, Ewa Aulin has had enough of the movie business and, apparently her husband. The couple divorce in 1972, and soon after she embarks on a new life. In 1974 she marries Cesare Paladino, a builder, enrols at university and settles down to become a teacher and mother (she already has a son, Shawn, by John Shadow). One of her two daughters, Olivia Paladino, will become the partner of Giuseppe Conte, 58th prime minister of Italy.

On her Facebook page, Eva now describes herself as an artist.

Want to know more about Ewa Aulin?

Head for the usual suspects: Wikipedia and IMDb. If it’s pictures rather than information you’re after, take a look at Ewa Aulin’s Facebook page. There’s a full-length copy of Candy on YouTube but unfortunately the aspect ratio is wrong.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Sex and power – Nazism in 1970s cinema
The sixties – sex, drugs, rock and roll and a whole lot more
Barbara Stanwyck in The Two Mrs Carrolls
Unsafe sex – the starlet’s dilemma

Filed Under: Films, Stars Tagged With: Britt Ekland, Candy, Ewa Aulin, Ingrid Thulin, John Shadow, Pia Degermark

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