Claudia is just impossibly sexy and gorgeous. She was a huge star in Europe from the late 50's onward, and she's played in a lot of serious and acclaimed Italian films (8-1/2, The Leopard) as well as comedies. She tried to shift her career to Hollywood in the 60's but she almost exclusively got cast in lightweight films there, like Blindfold (above); she's probably best known by Americans for her role in The Pink Panther. (Her other most recognizable role to Americans was acutually a serious one -- in Sergio Leone's spaghetti western epic Once Upon a Time in the West.) By the end of the 60's she gave up on the idea of trying to make it in American movies and went back to Europe, where she's had an extremely successful and very long running acting career and won a number of major acting awards, including one as recently as 2010.
For me, she was quite possibly the most beautiful actress ever to be subjected to messy slapstick. Granted, the mess she receives at Rock Hudson's hands leaves something to be desired from a wammer's perspective, but of course I'm not arguing it's the best mess ever received by an actress, just that she makes the most appealing target. I know this is heresy to some of you, but I find her even more attractive than Natalie Wood or Greta Thyssen (two of the most commonly named actresses around here for this honor).
With this in mind I've created a shrine in her honor. See it here: