The Italian muse

A muse of cinema, but not only that. Claudia Cardinale, who died yesterday in Nemours, France, at the age of 87, also left her mark on other areas of culture, starting with music. Legendary is the episode involving her and a landmark cover album, that of “Blonde On Blonde”, the double LP that in 1966 closed the so-called “electric trilogy” of Bob Dylan, opened by “Bringing It All Back Home” and cemented by “Highway 61 Revisited”.

Few album covers have fuelled as many legends as that of this watershed record, cut in Nashville amid a feverish atmosphere, which marked the creative peak of an artist already elevated to generational symbol. The front cover shows a shivering Dylan standing in front of a brick building in New York's Meatpacking District. The shot, taken by Jerry Schatzberg, is deliberately blurred: a detail that over the years was loaded with psychedelic interpretations, as if that visual flicker evoked an acid trip. In reality, the explanation was simpler and rather disarming. “I wanted to find an interesting location outside the studio,” Schatzberg recalled. “We went to the West Side, where the Chelsea art galleries are now. Back then it was New York's meatpacking district, and I liked the way it looked. We were freezing cold. Everyone looked for some meaning in the fact that it was blurred, saying it had to represent the starting point for an LSD trip. It was nothing like that: we were just cold, and we were both shivering. There were other sharp images in my set of shots, but, to his credit, Dylan liked that photograph.”

But it's inside the album sleeve that the real twist lies in wait. Among the collages of images and various photographs there appeared, without any warning, a young Claudia Cardinale, captured by Schatzberg in one of his most luminous portraits. Dylan, the photographer recalls, came across the photo in his studio, was instantly struck by it, and asked for it to be included in the album's booklet. The actress, however, had not been informed, let alone given her consent. When her lawyers found out, they threatened legal action: Columbia hastily removed the image and reprinted the album in a new version.

The episode helped create one of rock collecting's most curious rarities: the first American copies featuring Cardinale inside became objects to hunt down, trade and appraise. Even today they circulate as prized items among vinyl enthusiasts and fetishists, testimony to a short circuit between music, cinema and the record market.

For her part, Claudia Cardinale only discovered what had happened after the fact, when a fan asked her for an autograph and handed her the record bearing her printed image. Rather than taking offence, the actress said she felt flattered: it's not every day that an icon like Bob Dylan chooses your face specifically to accompany a work that would go down in history. It was her entourage, however, concerned with protecting her image, that forced the U-turn.

The paradox is that, although Cardinale's presence lasted only the length of one print run, that unexpected intrusion continues to be talked about, almost as if it were an integral part of the legend of “Blonde On Blonde”. After all, it's the same dynamic that accompanied Dylan throughout his career: the attraction to, and simultaneous rejection of, the star system, the desire to escape labels, to confuse friends and enemies alike with moves that seem like provocations but actually stem from instinctive gestures.

It's no coincidence that, just a few weeks after the album's release, Dylan literally vanished from the scene: the famous motorcycle accident of July 1966 forced him into seclusion in Woodstock, amid uncontrolled rumours of death, madness and secret hospitalisations. While America wondered about his fate, “Blonde On Blonde” began its own independent life, soon rising to become a milestone in music history.

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14/02/2026