Claudia Cardinale
Screen siren Claudia Cardinale launches a season of films by Luchino Visconti at the NFT. Here she talks to Adrian Wootton about working with the director and leading man Burt Lancaster, as well as the marvellous time she's had working with a host of other stars
* guardian.co.uk,
* Saturday May 10 2003
Adrian Wootton: Good evening, ladies and gentleman. My name is Adrian Wootton, and I'm the acting director of the British film institute. I'd like to welcome you to the National Film Theatre tonight for this very special presentation of [Luchino] Visconti's The Leopard. You'll hear more of me later, but for now I'd like you please to welcome the new chairman of the BFI to introduce the whole evening to you. Will you please welcome Anthony Minghella.
Anthony Minghella: I'd like to welcome all of you here to the NFT this evening. Sometimes, in the last few weeks since I took on this job as the new chairman of the BFI, I thought I'd gone insane to try to take on such a huge undertaking, such a marvellous undertaking, while trying to combine it with the couple of other lives that I have as a film director and also as a partner in a production company. This is one of those very rare occasions, I imagine, where all three parts of my life are going to coincide. As a film-maker and as an audience member, Visconti's films have been a huge, huge powerful influence on me. And when I think about where my work has come from, where my joy has come from, it goes back to the Italian cinema always, and particularly to this director. So I'm thrilled this evening that I can be here and stand up and advertise my own passion for him as a film-maker, and particularly for this film.
As the chairman of the BFI, this is what I think the BFI is about. Four years in the making, this season of Visconti is a fantastic opportunity for people who've never seen this movie, never heard of these movies, to see them in beautifully restored prints around the country. And I'm very proud to be able to be part of that attempt to broadcast the good news about a wonderful film-maker from the past.
The third part of my life, as a partner in a company called Mirage, coincides in a very strange way this evening, because my mentor and friend, partner and teacher, and generally good egg Sydney Pollack had a very strange skirmish with this film, which we'll get on to in a second.
If you'll forgive me, I'm just going to go through... I was handed a whole sheet of paper with things I have to tell you before we start. So, first and foremost, I'd like to thank our partners in presenting this retrospective of the work of Visconti, the Escuela Nacionale de Cinema in Rome, especially Angelo Libertini, Gabrielli Antinolfi and Larba Gento, who've supplied the majority of the prints screening in this season as part of their ongoing Visconti project. Also, the Italian Cultural Institute in London, particularly Mario Fortinarto and Giovano Gruber.
Adrian Wootton is hosting this interview, and it's a great opportunity tonight, too, to say a huge, huge thank you to Adrian. Adrian has been with the BFI for a decade in a variety of capacities, all of them significant, and he's made an extraordinary contribution to this institute. He's going on to bright new things as the chief executive of Film London, and it's a great opportunity for us tonight to say a real thank you to Adrian. He is the best of the BFI, and I've told him we're going to nail at least one of his feet to the ground of the NFT to make sure he comes back again in the future and keeps working with us.
We have to thank the Guardian - we're always thanking the Guardian - not only for its content as a newspaper but also for supporting this interview series and bringing key personalities to the NFT to discuss their work on stage. We're delighted tonight that Claudia Cardinale was able to accept our invitation to visit and talk to Adrian afterwards.
There are many Visconti films still to be seen in this season; it's the entire collection of Visconti's work, so there's still an opportunity to see Rocco and His Brothers, and all of his great works. It's my special privilege this evening before the film starts to introduce you to a very young acting coach who has a few words to say before the film starts. Can I introduce Sydney Pollack...
Sydney Pollack: Thank you very much. Anthony has beaten me into doing this. I've got to try to put my experience with this film into some sort of context for you because it truly was bizarre. In the early sixties I was in my early twenties, and I had grown up in the midwest of the United States in the fifties when it was really a cultural desert. I was monumentally ignorant of almost everything, but through a series of flukes that I won't bore you with, but largely through the good auspices of Burt Lancaster, I got pushed accidentally into a directing career. I had no aspirations to do it. I was a monumentally unsuccessful actor and doing everything I could to avoid taking a regular job, including dialogue coaching on films.
And that's how I met Lancaster, and somehow he managed to pull strings and do all sorts of unfair things and get me a job directing really terrible westerns, half-hour westerns, on television. And in the middle of this I got a phone call. And I hadn't talked to Burt maybe for three years, except to thank him for saving my life - getting me this job directing these bad television shows.
And the phone rang, and Burt said, "Dear boy." He either called me kid or dear boy. "Dear boy, do you know who Visconti is?"
I said, "I've never heard of him, what does he do?"
"Well, he's a great director, and you ought to go out and see some of his films because it'll be good for you. Do you know who Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa is?"
I couldn't even pronounce his name. "No, I don't."
"Have you ever heard of a novel called the Leopard?"
"No, I haven't."
"Well, I'm doing this film with Visconti, who's a great director, but he doesn't speak English, and you know, the Italian cinema... they don't do direct live sound recordings. So I'm going to be speaking in English; everyone else will be speaking in other languages. The film will get dubbed into Italian, but when we do an English version, I'll have to dub my part back. So I want you to go over there, and I want you to watch and learn from Visconti, and watch the post-production, and then I want you to help me do my part back into English."
So I'd never been outside the United States, I found myself on a first-class SAS flight to Rome, going to the Grand hotel. I don't think I'd ever been in a hotel. I would make my bed every morning when I got up, and I didn't know what the hell I was doing. And I was jet-lagged and exhausted. And they took me into a theatre, and I saw this scratchy, black and white duke with no sound and a terrible track and all this camera noise of a movie that lasted three and a half hours at that time or something, and everybody was speaking a different language.
Claudia, you know, this beautiful Claudia Cardinale, was speaking Italian sometimes, sometimes a little bit of English. Alain Delon was speaking French; Burt was speaking English. I couldn't hear half of what he was saying, and I was sleepy, and I thought, Burt's in real trouble here. This is going to be really something. And they took me in to meet the great man. And he was in fact a great man - you could tell by looking at him. He always looked to me like he was wearing a cape, even though he wasn't, of course; he was just in shirt-sleeves. But he used to be very indulgent with me.
I had just seen the Dolce Vita, so at night I would stagger up one side of the Via Veneto, down the other side, pretending I was Marcello Mastroianni looking for some kind of adventure. And Visconti used to say in the morning when I would come in ... he didn't speak hardly any English, but he had this great intimidating regal bearing.
He would say, "Pollack, La Dolce Vita last night." He would say this to me all the time, and I had this image of him.
Then later on, when you could see that this film almost bankrupted Titanus Films, who were the producers, it was costing so much money, and he was a perfectionist, and he wouldn't give up, and he used to stand with his hand behind his back. You had the feeling that bits of plaster from the ceiling were falling. They really weren't, but that's the way it felt. He would say, "Pollack, you must be intransigent."
So years later, when I would get in trouble on a film, I would look at myself in the mirror and I would say, "Pollack, you must be intransigent," and it didn't work. It only worked for Visconti.
But I saw this film probably 60 or 70 times because I watched it slowly, slowly get finished. The voices added, the colour, the print by the great Giuseppe Rotunno, who was a great, great cinematographer, the beauty of all the costume design. Finally, even in my wooden brain, about the fiftieth time I saw it, it started to penetrate. I found it so incredibly moving and elegant, beautifully made and full of poetry and full of elegance and full of a kind of grace that it made me, I think, realise for the first time how high a level of art cinema could achieve.
So I'm thrilled to be able to be a part of this tonight. I haven't seen the film in 40 years, literally. And I just want to thank the BFI for making this whole series possible. This has been four years, I think, in the works to make this happen. I envy those of you who are going to see it for the first time, and I wish you a pleasant evening watching.
AW: So we better get on and welcome the patron of our Visconti season. We're absolutely over the moon to welcome the star of The Leopard, please welcome Claudia Cardinale. Thank you so much for coming this evening.
Claudia Cardinale: Very moved.
AW: It's wonderful to have you here as our special guest of honour and as our patron for the Visconti season. There're so many things I could ask you tonight because of all the diverse movies of your career. But because of the hour and because everyone's just watched the Leopard, I thought that I was going to focus on Visconti.
Maybe our audience members have lots of other questions to ask you about Blake Edwards, Richard Brooks, Werner Herzog...the list is far too long for me to repeat now, but I'd like to kick off by asking you about your first encounter with Visconti. You obviously met him at a very young age and appeared in Rocco and His Brothers. Could you tell us a little bit about what it was like, did you have to audition for him? How did you get cast for Rocco?
CC: Well, to tell the truth ... Luchino, from the very first moment he saw me, he loved me. We had a marvellous relationship. It was just fantastic. And when I first arrived from Africa, Tunisia, because I had won a prize...
AW: In a beauty contest?
CC: Yes, exactly. And I arrived in Venice. And the first film I saw was Notti Bianchi by Visconti. Then it was just something very strange, special, because then I worked with him.
AW: And what was that first experience like, of working on Rocco?
CC: Well, I thought, you know, he couldn't see me, and one day, you know, he shouts, and he said ... it was a scene with lots of people ... and he said, "Don't kill me, La Cardinale." (Laughter) Then I understood that he looked at me and, you know, he could see me.
AW: And after you'd had that experience of working on that film, did you know very early on that you were going to be in the Leopard? Was it almost seamless? Did he talk to you about it?
CC: No, no, no. No, I didn't expect it, but he asked me to do it. And for me it was really the most important moment. Because I was doing at the same time The Leopard and Fellini's 8 1/2. And Federico wants me brown and looking dark. And I was changing the colour of my hair every two weeks.
AW: We'll maybe get onto Fellini in a moment, but what was he like to be directed by? What kind of director was he?
CC: Luchino?
AW: Yes.
CC: Like the theatre. Everyone was decided before, no improvisation. And we used to work around a table, like theatre. And the technicians and the people were coming at the end of it, when everything was ready and we were acting, and then they were coming. I mean, the technicians, the photography, the lighting - it was really a preparation, like theatre.
AW: But I gather that he was a very meticulous director, that he only wanted you to do what he wanted you to do and nothing else.
CC: No, he knew what he wanted. And, of course, it was such an event to be there. And I was just doing what he asked me to do. And he said to me once, "Remember Claudia, you have to separate the mouth and the eyes. The eyes have to say exactly the opposite of what you're saying."
AW: And was it a difficult film to make, was it hard work?
CC: Well, it was very hot in Sicily. We worked in the Palace, Palazzo Gangi, for a month during the night, because it was too hot during the day. The dress was quite heavy and also the corset was very tight. I couldn't sit; it was impossible. And when I finished the film, I had blood all around. I remember that.
AW: And what was it like, because obviously it was the first film you made with Burt Lancaster. You went on and made more films with him. What was it like working with Burt Lancaster?
CC: Well, he came to Sicily a long time before; he was observing, looking at the people. He was coming from America and he was supposed to play the Prince of Salina. That to me is one of the best interpretations. Fantastic. He was a marvellous man, very handsome, and really a professional.
AW: But you told me when we talked yesterday that there was a moment at the beginning when Luchino decided to establish his authority, shall we say ...
CC: Exactly. The first day we arrived, Luchino was talking to me always in French, and he called me Claudine, never Claudia. And he came and he said, "Mr Lancaster, please do the dance." We start to dance, and he said, "Stop." He took my hand and he said, "When Mr Lancaster will be ready, we come back." I almost fainted. I was all red in my face because he was a giant, a divinity. And we went in another side, we took champagne, we talked. Then an assistant came and said Mr Lancaster was ready. We came back. But Luchino wanted to make the point, immediately, that he was the master on the set. And after became very, very close friends. But the first moment was really very difficult.
AW: And as you said, apart from having to change your hair colour every two weeks because you were also shooting the marvellous movie 8 1/2, I understand Fellini's method of direction was radically different.
CC: Yes. No script, only improvisation. And Luchino was just the opposite. With Luchino it was impossible to smile or speak or say a word on the set. With Federico, we had to shout and sing, because he loved the place just the opposite.
AW: But obviously you formed a very unique bond with Visconti as a result of Rocco and then the Leopard. And a couple of years later you did a film called Sandra, which was radically different. That's, I think, one of the rarest films we're presenting in the season, and a lot of people haven't seen it.
CC: It's fantastic.
AW: So perhaps you could tell us a little about that film in terms of making it. It was a couple of years later and I think you'd already been to America. You were dotting back and forth by then ...
CC: Yes, because after the Leopard and 8½, I went to Hollywood to do films. Because of Luchino, and because of Federico Fellini. Well, Sandra ... it's an incredible relationship between brother and sister. Jean Sorel is my brother in the film. It's a film that I like very, very much. Very difficult, the interpretation, because totally different. I mean, it's a film, and Luchino also had this incredible thing, the way he was photographing and the way he was putting the camera.
AW: And it's interesting again. It's something we've read about, but at the time that The Leopard was released, it had a very poor reaction in America.
CC: Terrible, it was a flop. When we ran in New York for the premiere, terrible. we spent all night in the hotel with Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Luchino, Warren Beatty, lots of friends. It was a disaster because they said he can't be a prince, he's a cowboy. Stupid.
AW: But you actually did then, I'm digressing slightly, but you did then make a western with him a couple of years later.
CC: Yes, The Professionals. Richard Brooks.
AW: Well, I think a rather terrific movie, actually.
CC: Not bad, no.
AW: But the thing is, you obviously stayed very close to Visconti, because you were telling us you came over here with him ...
CC: Many times. We came here to see the last concert of Marlene Dietrich and also for theatre, Peter Brook with Marat/Sade. We came many, many times together to London. It was fantastic.
AW: But there was then a big gap. You were obviously working in America. You were making lots of different films, but you did come back and make what I would describe as a very interesting cameo appearance, reuniting with Burt Lancaster in Conversation Piece in 1974, where you're actually a ghost in it, an apparition effectively. Because Visconti had already been ill by then, and he'd recovered from the stroke and he was working again. What was the experience like working again with Burt Lancaster and that final film with Visconti?
CC: It was important the way he was looking at me. He didn't need to have words. He had such a thought, something incredible. He gave me lots of things only by looking at me. And this film he asked me to do something magic. The mother ... he wanted me to be his mother. That's why he asked me back.
AW: Well, because obviously Visconti had a massive influence on your life and on your career, but you obviously did many, many other things. And I just wondered how what's interesting to me, looking at your career, is that Visconti and Fellini and many other Italian directors ... perhaps you could talk about the contrast between that and working in Hollywood. Because you did go to Hollywood and you went over. We were going to show a clip of the Pink Panther.
CC: But we did the Pink Panther not in Hollywood, in Italy.
AW: But did you find the working methods when you went and you started working with American directors, did you find it very different when you went there and when you started working?
CC: Yes, they wanted me to sign a contract of exclusivity, and I refused. Because I'm a European actress, and I was going there for movies. But then I was coming back to Europe, to Italy. And I had a big opportunity with Richard Brooks, The Professionals, which is really a magnificent movie. Many other movies, but for me The Professionals is the best I did in Hollywood.
AW: And shot by the late, great Conrad Hall, who passed away just recently and got the posthumous Oscar for Road to Perdition. But in terms of your American career, it's interesting to me. I don't know if you can describe it as an American movie - again we're going to see a clip of it later on. But you then worked in '68, '69 with Sergio Leone.
CC: Once Upon a Time in the West.
AW: Another masterpiece of cinema, working with Henry Fonda.
CC: And the music.
AW: Again, amazing music, just like the Nina Rota score we heard tonight. Can you talk a little bit about that because that must have been interesting working with an Italian director but with a largely American cast and a big Hollywood star in terms of Henry Fonda?
CC: We were also in Monument Valley. The film, we did it in Spain. And also, Sergio Leone was considered in Italy a director of category B, not a big director. I don't understand. But Sergio Leone invented totally the way of, you know, the details, the eyes, the hands - fantastic. And also something he was doing, and is the first one, he was doing the music before starting the film. Before each scene he was putting the music of Jill. It was fantastic because you became immediately the person, I mean Jill. I was Jill after the music, the emotion, everything.
AW: That, I mean, that brings me on to the question of how you prepare for roles. I mean, obviously you talked about Visconti and theatre, and you've been doing a lot of theatre recently, but how do you prepare for a role? Do you like lots of rehearsal, is that something you re happy with? I mean, there's the whole chestnut about method acting.
CC: Not outside the studio, no. I become in front of the camera. But to do this kind of work, you have to be very strong, otherwise you lose your personality, your identity. You don't know who you are. It's fantastic because I've been living thousands of lives, not only my life. Lots. I've also been doing all the literature, Italian literature. But no, I don't like to repeat very much. I like to float with the camera.
Questioner: Was Alain Delon as naughty as they said he was?
Claudia Cardinale: You know, in Sicily, all the women were in love with him. He was so handsome. But we always had a marvellous relationship till now. When we see The Leopard together, he's crying on my shoulder. He's very moved because for us it's for eternity, together with Luchino Visconti.
Question 1: (barely audible) Why did you focus so primarily on European cinema? You could have lived in the lap of luxury with this exclusive contract in Hollywood, why didn't you take that?
CC: I don't like the star system. I'm a normal person. I like to live in Europe. I mean, I've been going to Hollywood many, many times, but I didn't want to sign a contract. I already had a contract for, well, 18 years with Vidas, exclusivity contract, a long time.
AW: That was when you worked with and for Franco Cristaldi?
CC: Yes, I was under contract with Franco Cristaldi, and my first movie in the middle of 58, Monicelli's Big Deal on Madonna Street, I was under contract for many, many years.
AW: And did that mean that? Well, obviously, you've talked about working for Visconti, but did that contract mean your roles were chosen for you? I mean, there were weird things in the contract I've read about, you know, in terms of weight and what you were...
CC: I was also talking, but I wasn't paid because the production had all the money. I had an exclusivity contract. I was paid like every month, like it was very strange.
AW: So you were quite glad when that expired?
CC: Yes.
Question 2: Because of their different styles of film-making, who was easier to work with, Fellini or Visconti?
CC: Fellini was a magician. I loved working with Federico Fellini, also because for him, I ... I don't know. He was looking at me like I was the girl of the dream in the film.
AW: Yes, you are, you absolutely are.
CC: And it was all improvisation when I was shooting with him. Marcello wasn't there. Federico was sitting next to me; he was talking to me. I was answering him, no script. With Visconti just the opposite. But I like this, I like the change, otherwise it's a boring life. It's so exciting to change like this. The two, because it depends. I learnt so much with them. He used to say to me, "When you arrive somewhere, you have to walk like a leopard, not like this, it's no good."
AW: But while we're talking about directing styles, I might as well jump in here and ask about Fitzcarraldo, because this is one of the most famous shoots in film history, and the Les Blank documentary, Burden of Dreams, documenting much of it. There were all kinds of rumours. I believe there were press rumours that you'd been run over by a truck, you'd been lost in the jungle, and amazing stories when you made this film in the early 1980s. Because Werner Herzog doesn't strike me as being like any other director that you could ever possibly work with.
CC: No. But I like crazy people. Otherwise it's a bore. And with Werner, it was really an adventure. We didn't know if every day we were arriving on set. It was an adventure. But we were actors and technicians all together. Ten people on the set, it was an incredible, big adventure. But it's really a cult movie. I love it.
AW: But it looks like it was an incredibly tough and sometimes scary experience.
CC: No, I love danger. When it's too easy, I'm not interested. No, it was really very dangerous but very exciting.
AW: That's very good that you felt that way about it. Does somebody else want to ask another question?
Question 3: (inaudible)
AW: The gentleman's talking about a whole range of other major Italian film-makers that Ms Cardinale has worked with and asking which is your favourite?
CC: Well. Valerio Zurlini has been very important for me because, you know, I don't think I'm an actress. I think I have the capacity and the possibility to become the woman I'm supposed to. And Valerio explained very well to me this kind of transformation in front of the camera. He was a marvellous director of actors, an incredible intellectual. Well, I have a terrible story also. I saw him just before he died. He just wanted to say goodbye before leaving, and I didn't know it was his last day, and the following day, he was dead. Terrible.
Question 4: (inaudible)
AW: Was Brigitte Bardot fun?
CC: Yes, it was a lot of fun. Because she was a bit afraid of me, because she says, "You're not a woman, you're a man." Because I like danger. And most of the time between scenes, I was taking her on my horse, and I was going up the mountains, and she was scared to death. But we had a lot of ... It was fantastic. The journalists and the people around thought we were going to kill each other. You know, together we had a lot of fun. And they were very disappointed because we didn't kill each other.
AW: Well, I want to ask you about Henry Hathaway and working. It's got various titles: The Magnificent Showman, with John Wayne and Rita Hayworth...
CC: My mother and my father. I was really a very young girl there, and John Wayne was so ... And the hand was big, twice. I looked like a, you know, I was a little girl. But it was a marvellous experience. And there too I like danger. I'd been doing all the scenes myself.
AW: All the circus scenes?
CC: Because I like that, when it's dangerous I'm excited.
AW: And what was he like to work with?
CC: Hathaway?
AW: Well, no, John Wayne I was thinking of.
CC: We had a marvellous relationship. I must say I've been doing more than 100 films, but all the people I've worked with we became always very close. And John Wayne was fantastic and also Rita Hayworth. But she was already not well.
Question 5: (inaudible - a question about Claudia Cardinale's next project - is it to be in Argentina as the questioner has heard?)
CC: No, I don't know. I received that ... because I've been doing a play [in Italy] of Pirandello's with my companion, Pasquale Squitieri, As You Desire Me, and when I came back to Paris, I had lots of scripts. But I haven't read all of them. But Argentina, I don't know.
Question 6: (inaudible)
CC: What? What?
AW: He says it's on the internet as your latest movie. It's a little bit previous, or it sounds that way. Can I ask you about theatre? Because obviously you've been doing, as you mentioned a couple of times, theatre. What led you to do Pirandello? Why have you spent so much time, is it something you just decided ... ?
CC: I didn't decide; Pasquale Squitieri decided. Because, this character, As You Desire Me, is really very, very tough, very difficult. But I enjoy it so much. And for a woman it's fantastic, because you are As You Desire Me. It's the woman who changes in front of a man. It's a fantastic character. But you need a lot of concentration. Usually, I was coming on stage four hours before to concentrate. It was a marvellous experience. We've been all over Italy and, well, everywhere full of people. Fantastic.
AW: And do you think as a result of that experience of touring around Italy that you are going to do more theatre?
CC: I think so. They want me to do also the same, As You Desire Me with Pasquale Squitieri in Paris, in French. Maybe. But I don't know if I come back to cinema or ... I don't know.
Question 7: (inaudible)
AW: The gentleman was saying that because of your great knowledge of cinema, whether you've ever thought about lecturing or teaching about cinema?
CC: Teaching? Oh no, I'm not a teacher. No. And also I don't like to speak a lot and to talk a lot. I like silence.
AW: But I must ask you the question about the laugh in the Leopard, because that isn't silent at all, and it's one of the great, great moments in the film...
CC: It was a scandal, the film, they said, because it's very, you know, vulgar. It's fantastic, the reaction of all the people. You know, very elegant, the prince. And this one arrives, and she laughs like a ... They were very shocked.
AW: And was that something that you did a lot of rehearsal with Visconti on?
CC: No, he asked me to do that and I did it.
AW: Just like that?
CC: Yes. When he asked me something, I'll do it.
AW: But one of the other things I was going to ask you, because you mentioned in interviews I read with you, obviously I think you had a very long career and you made many things. Perhaps you could say something about working with Marcello Mastroianni, because I think your first film was with him.
CC: Yes. And then we did the Bell'Antonio by Mauro Bolognini, and then I did also Liliana Cavani, and we worked together many times. Of course, 8 1/2 Fellini. Yes.
AW: Obviously. Were you close friends? Did you have a good ...?
CC: I don't want to speak about that. Do you want to ...?
AW: I was talking about the movies.
CC: Because Marcello said always that he was in love with me, and I'd always laugh, and he was furious. Because I never ... For me, work is something, and private life is something else, very separate. But with Marcello, we had a marvellous relationship all his life. He was a marvellous actor.
Question 10: (inaudible)
AW: Does watching that scene remind you of a scene in a film much later, The Godfather?
CC: No, I'm sorry it doesn't remind me. Because for me the waltz of The Leopard is magic.
AW: Same composer, Nina Rota, on both, I think. That's probably a part connection.
Question 11: (inaudible)
AW: The lady's asking ... just mentioning the fact that she didn't realise that you weren't Italian, that you were born in Tunisia, until this evening. Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about that because your first language is French.
CC: Yes. Because I'm born in Africa, in Tunisia, three generations, and of course my education is French and I'm Italian of nationality. But I wasn't speaking a word of Italian, and my roots are really African. I mean, because of many generations, I'm Tunisian. When I arrived for my first movie, I couldn't speak a word. I thought I was on the moon. I couldn't understand what they talking about. And I was speaking in French; in fact I was dubbed. And Federico Fellini was the first one who used my voice. I think I had a very strange voice.
AW: I wouldn't say it was strange. I think it's one of the most famous voices in cinema. So from '58 to '63...
CC: ...I was dubbed.
AW: Did you ask Fellini?
CC: No, no. He asked me to do it. And I was very happy because they always used such strange voices for me. You know, up, little voices. It's not me; I'm another thing. I didn't like it.
Question 12: (inaudible)
AW: The lady's asking what it feels like when you're watching yourself on screen. Do you sit back and relax and just enjoy watching it again, or do you sit there and think about your performance and things you might have done differently?
CC: No, because it's done. It's already done. For example, tonight, I was very moved because I remembered lots of things behind the cameras. And Luchino Visconti and Burt Lancaster, they're not here any more. It was very moving for me, and I cried a lot.
AW: In terms of ... you mentioned going off and having a glass of champagne while you waited for Mr Lancaster to be ready. The things that we read about and also from the BBC documentary, Visconti was an immensely cultured man and also an aristocrat ...
CC: He was the Prince, he was The Leopard.
AW: I mean, obviously you became friends. To a certain extent you became part of his world because he always had quite a close entourage of people.
CC: It was fantastic to be close to him because ... I was listening all the time. You could talk about everything - opera, music, profession, make-up, hairdo, everything. He knew everything. He was really a master of everything. Intellectually, incredible intellectually. The charm, incredible.
AW: Another related question, but you did an incredibly famous television series in '76, Jesus of Nazareth, with [Franco] Zeferelli. Did you know Zeferelli because of Visconti?
CC: No, I knew him already. In Italy in the sixties, it was the magic moment of Italian cinema. We were always together, the directors, the actors, it was an incredible atmosphere. And I knew Franco Zeferelli like all others. I came back to my country in Tunisia and we did ...
AW: I just wondered if you'd met on a Visconti film before that ...
CC: No. He was of course the assistant, but like also Rossi, Francisco Rossi.
AW: Time for one or two last questions.
Question 12: (inaudible)
AW: In the dance scenes of The Leopard, were you asked to hold on to your dress?
CC: I didn't hold my dress. Because one hand is here and the other is here, how can I hold my dress? It's impossible. I was holding my dress?
AW: This is causing more debate than anything that's happened this evening. Shall we have a vote on how many people think Ms Cardinale was holding her dress? You were?
CC: What's the problem? If I was holding or not holding?
AW: I think you did it elegantly whatever you did.
CC: Thank you.
Question 13: (inaudible)
AW: The gentleman's asking about Fitzcarraldo and about the kind of trauma, as he describes it, of Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog...
CC: Fantastic. Fighting whole day long. And the Indians one day, they asked Werner, "If you want, we can kill him."
AW: On that note, I think I might stop. Well, I am going to stop, because we've got some clips for the audience to watch from some of the other roles that we talked about tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, Claudia Cardinale. (applause)
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