Alain Delon, the French actor and 1960s heart-throb who shot to fame playing rogues and gangsters while living a tumultuous life off screen, has died aged 88.
One of the biggest names in a towering generation of French cinema stars, Delon died “peacefully at his home in Douchy, surrounded by his three children and loved ones,” his family told AFP, the French news agency on Sunday. He had been suffering from poor health in recent years.
French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to the “legendary” roles Delon played and his “unforgettable face”.
“Melancholic, popular, secretive, he was more than a star: he was a French monument,” Macron said on X.
Delon shot to fame with roles that had a criminal or dark edge as he played murderers and hitmen. He was known for his chiselled good looks and bright blue eyes, and he drew fans from across the globe during his heyday.
Some of his best-known films included Plein Soleil (Purple Noon) from 1960, which was loosely based on the Patricia Highsmith novel The Talented Mr Ripley; Luchino Visconti’s 1963 movie The Leopard, in which he starred alongside Burt Lancaster; and Le Samouraï, a 1967 Jean-Pierre Melville film in which he played a contract killer.
His career was at times overshadowed by scandals, and he was open about his own connections to real-life mafiosi and gangsters, some of whom he met early in his life while doing odd jobs in Paris.
In his later years, Delon courted controversy with comments such as his admission that he slapped women and criticisms of adoption by same sex couples.
He had also professed to a friendship with far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen. That triggered a backlash when he was awarded an honorary prize at the Cannes film festival in 2019, one of the actor’s last public appearances.
At the time of the award, Delon defended his legacy. “People can say what they want, I’m used to it. But there’s nothing to be said about my career. It’s irreproachable,” he told Le Journal du Dimanche newspaper in 2019.
Delon also paid homage to his fans that year in a statement released to AFP, thanking them for their support “as my journey nears its end”. He said he had known “so many passions, loves, so many successes and failures, controversies, scandals and dark affairs” in his life.
Born just outside Paris in Sceaux in 1935, Delon had a turbulent childhood, starting when he was placed in foster care aged four, before he attended a series of boarding schools. At 17, he joined the French navy and served in what was then known as Indochina and ruled by France.
Back in Paris in the 1950s, he fell in with an underworld crowd in the Pigalle red light district and worked as a porter in Les Halles food market.
Through a friend, he visited the Cannes Film Festival in 1957 and was spotted by a Hollywood agent who took him for screen tests. His career as an actor took off with a series of film and stage roles. He won awards for his acting, but he never made it big in the US.
Early in his career, Delon met actress Romy Schneider, to whom he was engaged but never married. The couple went on to star in the sexual jealousy drama La Piscine (The Swimming Pool).
In 1964, Delon married Nathalie Barthélémy, a model and actress, with whom he had a son — one of his four children born from three relationships.
One of his children with German singer Nico, who he never recognised, died last year.
In recent years, infighting among his children spilled out into the public as Delon’s health deteriorated after a stroke.
One of the darkest moments of his career dates back to the late 1960s, when the body of Stefan Markovic, a bodyguard and secretary to Delon, was found in a rubbish dump near Paris.
Delon was investigated in Markovic’s death, though he denied any involvement. The man eventually charged with the murder, a friend of Delon’s, was later acquitted.
Politicians and the cinema world paid tribute to Delon on Sunday. Véronique Jannot, a French actress who had worked alongside him, said he had been “a god,” adding that people had forgotten Delon’s film legacy.
“It’s extremely sad that he’s gone, but it’s at the same time a liberation. He did not like this age that we are in,” Jannot told BFM TV.
Paul Belmondo, the son of late actor Jean-Paul Belmondo who starred alongside Delon in 1970 gangster movie Borsalino, also told the TV station: “It’s a chapter in cinema history that is closing, a chapter of our lives.”
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