Acclaimed Italian actress Claudia Cardinale, who starred in some of the most celebrated European films of the 1960s and 1970s, has died at the age of 87.

She starred in more than 100 films and made-for-television productions, but she was best known for embodying youthful purity in Federico Fellini’s 8½, in which she co-starred with Marcello Mastroianni in 1963.

Cardinale also won praise for her role as Angelica Sedara in Luchino Visconti’s award-winning screen adaption of the historical novel The Leopard that same year and a reformed prostitute in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western Once Upon a Time in the West in 1968.

She died in Nemours, France, surrounded by her children, her agent Laurent Savry told AFP.

Cardinale began her movie career at the age of 17 after winning a beauty contest

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