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The cultural production centre Milano Triennale has hosted the celebration of United Artists' 90th anniversary. The legendary film studio was incorporated as a joint venture in 1919 by four of the leading figures in early Hollywood (Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith) and has built a solid tradition of cinema production and creativity thanks to dozens of movies among the best of all times. One is certainly 'The Pink Panther' (1964) directed by Blake Edwards with David Niven, Peter Sellers and Claudia Cardinale: this film's DVD is part of the UA's celebrative collection made of 30 famous titles.

The Italian actress, an icon of contemporary cinema, has been the initiative's testimonial. Interviewed by cinema critic Gianni Canova, she has retraced her 50-year long career. Cardinale, who will turn 70 on April 15th, embraced a sudden success in 1958 when director Mario Monicelli picked her for his international movie 'I soliti ignoti'. Throughout the 1960s she appeared in many Italian or Italian co-financed films, including Luchino Visconti's 'Il Gattopardo' (The Leopard, 1963), 'Rocco and his brothers' (1963) and Philippe de Broca's 'Cartouche' (1963).

Cardinale was born in Tunisia to French mother and Italian father: being French her native language, her fluency in Italian was limited and in early films she was dubbed by someone else. Not until Federico Fellini's '8 e mezzo' (1963) was she allowed to dub her own dialogue. 'It's true. Fellini was the first one to give me this chance. With him, actors used to improvise, while with Luchino Visconti, my maestro, everything was calculated'.

The Pink Panther was her first American work. 'Great actors, great director, my first work in English: I loved it! To me, David Niven was the gentleman par excellence. Peter Sellers was hilarious during the shooting, while in his private life he was quite an introvert. Black Edwards was an ironic and smart director'. An other 'genius' Cardinale remembers with pleasure is Sergio Leone, who chose her for the epic 'Once Upon a Time in the West' (1968). 'It is unusual that a woman has a central role in a western movie', underlines the beautiful actress 'Leone was able to invent a new way to conceive and make cinema. Nowadays his style is still praised and imitated'.

The star, who currently lives in Paris and is involved in many humanitarian causes as Unesco Goodwill Ambassadress, will soon go back to her native country to take part in two new productions. 'I'll act in a movie by a Tunisian director and I'll be one of the protagonists of Gianni Amelio's 'Le Premier Homme' (The first man), a film drawn from Camus' unfinished autobiographical novel. I'm looking forward to begin!'.