Claudia Cardinale

Claudia Cardinale was born Claude Joséphine Rose Cardinale in La Goulette, a neighbourhood of Tunis, Tunisia, on 15 April 1938. Her father Francesco Cardinale was a railway worker, born in Gela, Sicily. Her mother Yolande Greco, also born in Tunisia, had parents who were Sicilian emigrants from Trapani who had a small shipbuilding firm in Trapani. They later settled in La Goulette, which had a large Italian community. Her native languages were French, Tunisian Arabic, and the Sicilian language of her parents. She did not learn to speak Italian until she had already begun to be cast for Italian films. Cardinale was educated at the Saint-Joseph-de-l'Apparition school of Carthage, which she attended along with her younger sister Blanche. She then studied at the Paul Cambon School, graduating with the intention of becoming a teacher. As a teenager, she was described as "silent, weird, and wild", and like other girls of her generation, was fascinated by Brigitte Bardot, who came to prominence in the 1956 film And God Created Woman, directed by Roger Vadim.