Claudia Cardinale, the beautiful Italian star who appeared in classic films including Fellini’s “8½” and Visconti’s “Rocco and His Brothers” and “The Leopard,” Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Western “Once Upon a Time in the West,” as well as “The Pink Panther,” has died. She was 87.

Her agent told AFP that she died in Nemours, near Paris. “She leaves us the legacy of a free and inspired woman both as a woman and as an artiste,” Laurent Savry said in a statement.

In Fellini’s “8½” she was second credited after Marcello Mastroianni for her role as Claudia, an elusive and ethereal muse, seductive and imaginary femme.”

She also starred opposite Jean Paul Belmondo in Philippe de Broca’s French period adventure “Cartouche” (1963). The New York Times offered its embarrassingly lusty approval: “The beautiful brunette Claudia Cardinale, who gives her all, including her life, so that he may woo his noble lady, is nobly endowed herself. And a quick, flashing smile, a pleasingly husky voice and a sense of humor add to the physical attributes not hidden by her gypsy costumes.”

Cardinale was in Richard Brooks’ 1966 Western “The Professionals,” but the plot did turn on her character: She played the wife of a wealthy man (Ralph Bellamy) who’s kidnapped by a Mexican bandit; the professionals of the title, played by Burt Lancaster and Lee Marvin, are hired to retrieve her. The film was Oscar nominated for director, screenplay and cinematography.

In Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Western “Once Upon a Time in the West,” Cardinale has one great moment as her character, a former prostitute who’s now married with children, arrives at her husband’s homestead after a trip from New Orleans to discover first a funeral procession and then the bodies of her dead offspring.

In the 1977 miniseries “Jesus of Nazareth,” starring Robert Powell, Cardinale appeared as the Adulteress.

She also had a substantial supporting role in the 1983 NBC miniseries “Princess Daisy,” based on the Judith Krantz novel.

She appeared in Werner Herzog’s notorious “Fitzcarraldo” (1982) — the film about a madman’s bizarrely noble effort that was itself a bizarrely mad but noble effort.  Cardinale played a madam who loves Klaus Kinski’s Fitzgerald, who seeks to drag a steamship across the Brazilian jungle, make a lot of money with it, build an opera house in the jungle and invite Caruso to sing in it.

Claude Joséphine Rose Cardinale was born in Tunis, in what is now Tunisia, to parents of Sicilian heritage. Her first 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 in Italian films.

She made her film debut in 1958’s Goha, by Jacques Baratier, who had wanted a native Tunisian to cast opposite Omar Sharif.

While still in her teens, she was raped and gave birth to her son Patrick, who was raised as her brother until the truth came out seven years later.

“I was forced to accept this lie to avoid a scandal and protect my career,” she said.

Her first film under the new deal was Mario Monicelli’s 1958 heist film spoof “Big Deal on Madonna Street,” starring Vittorio Gassman and Marcello Mastroianni, which was Oscar nominated for best foreign-language film.

She quickly became a popular player on the Italian movie scene, with six features in 1959 and four in 1960.

She was among the many stars in Abel Gance’s 1960 epic “The Battle of Austerlitz.”

Cardinale returned to Tunisia for Mehdu Ben Attia’s 2010 film “The String,” in which she played the wealthy mother of a gay Arab raised in France. She also appeared in Spanish director Fernando Trueba’s 2012 “The Artist and the Model” as the wife of the artist played by Jean Rochefort. Critic Rick Marianetti said: “Cardinale is wonderful — spritely and radiant — it’s difficult to comprehend that she appeared in the original ‘The Pink Panther’ and Fellini’s ‘8 ½’ in 1963.”

More recently she appeared in 2014’s Emma Thompson-scripted “Effie Gray,” the story of Victorian art critic John Ruskin’s wife, which starred Dakota Fanning.

The actress won an honorary Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival, a career Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1993 and a career David at Italy’s David di Donatello Awards in 1997.

She is survived by two children.