Cinema sex kitten Brigitte Bardot once said, "I already know who's destined to take my place. There can be only one, and one alone. After BB comes CC, no?" She was, of course, referring to none other than Claudia Cardinale.

Claudia Cardinale is one of Europe's screen sirens in the 1960s, and one of the rare few who managed to run past her sex kitten persona to establish herself as a reputable character actress. The great Italian director Federico Fellini, who worked with her in the classic 8 1/2 in 1963, proclaimed her through that movie to be an embodiment of what is ideal in a woman.

Claudia Cardinale was born Claude Josephine Rose Cardin to Italian parents in Tunis, Tunisia on April 15, 1938. Like most bombshell screen beauties at the time, her entry into Italian cinema started with her winning "The Most Beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia" contest, something Claudia Cardinale found amusing as she could not speak a word of Italian at the time. Her parents had raised her to speak French as her first language. After studying for two months in the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, she debuted in the 1958 film Goha. This led to a string of cinematic hits, until she reached her international superstardom through the movie 8 1/2.

Hollywood imported Claudia Cardinale for a short spell in the mid-1960s, and she starred in a number of films like The Professional (1966) and the classic comedy The Pink Panther (1964). Her Hollywood stint did not last long as Sophia Loren's did, due to her refusal to leave her acting roots in Italy. As she felt herself growing too old for sex kitten roles, she made the transition to being a character actress, establishing it firmly when she played Jill McBain in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).

Claudia Cardinale remains active to this day in Italian cinema. She is also a UNESCO goodwill ambassador for the defense of women's rights.