French film star dies aged 88

The celebrated actor, often dubbed the ‘male Brigitte Bardot’, starred in ‘Plein Soleil’ and ‘Le Samouraï’

Alain Delon, the French film actor who starred in classics including Plein Soleil, Le Samouraï, and Rocco and His Brothers, has died aged 88, his children have confirmed.

“His children, Alain Fabien, Anouchka, Anthony, as well as [his dog] Loubo, are deeply saddened to announce the passing of their father,” according to a statement shared with the French media.

Delon died peacefully in his home in Douchy, surrounded by his three children and his family.

The actor had been in poor health in recent years, and had suffered a stroke in 2019.

Often dubbed the “male Brigitte Bardot”, Delon had a hypnotic presence on screen and was routinely cast in roles as attractive men filled with angst, and who were prone to sudden outbursts of anger.

Other works in his filmography include Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard (1963), René Clément’s Purple Noon (1960), Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Eclipse (1962), Joseph Losey’s Mr Klein (1976), and Jean-Pierre Melville’s The Red Circle (1970). Despite his success in Europe, however, Delon never quite made it in Hollywood.

Delon was born in 1935 in the Paris suburb of Sceaux. His mother, Edith, worked at a pharmacy and his father, Fabien, ran a local cinema. At the age of four, Delon was sent to live with a foster family and then to a Catholic boarding school after his parents divorced.

The actor left education at 14 years old after being expelled from multiple schools and worked in his stepfather’s butcher’s shop. He then did a short spell in the navy, which saw him deployed in France’s colonial war in Vietnam. He was dishonourably discharged in 1956 for stealing and crashing a Jeep.

The Plein Soleil star began his acting career when he was spotted by the Hollywood Gone With the Wind producer David O Selznick at Cannes film festival in 1956. Selznick offered Delon a seven-year contract if he improved his English but the star decided to commit to French cinema and took his first role in Yves Allégret’s thriller Send a Woman When the Devil Fails (1957).

Of his first role, Delon later told Vanity Fair: “I didn’t know how to do anything. Yves Allégret took one look at me and said: ‘Listen to me very carefully, Alain: Talk like you talk to me. Look like you look at me. Listen like you listen to me. Don’t act, live.’ That changed everything.”

Following his debut, Delon was quickly cast in the lead role for Marc Allégret’s Be Beautiful and Shut Up in 1958. The same year, he was cast alongside the German actress Romy Schneider in Pierre Gaspard-Huit’s drama Christine (1958).

The pair began a high profile romance and were engaged the following year. They remained together until 1963, and starred in a further two films following their separation: Jacques Deray’s The Swimming Pool and Losey’s The Assassination of Trotsky.

By 1960, Delon had gained international recognition for his lead role in a French language adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s book The Talented Mr Ripley, Plein Soleil, directed by Clément. That same year, he received acclaim for his performance in Rocco and His Brothers by the revered Italian auteurs Visconti and Antonioni, who also cast him in the Sicily epic The Leopard and the stockbroker drama L’Eclisse, respectively.

Despite his ongoing success in Europe, Delon only managed small roles in English-language films, appearing in Anthony Asquith’s 1964 comedy The Yellow Rolls-Royce, Mark Robson’s Lost Command, the Dean Martin western Texas Across the River and Is Paris Burning alongside Kirk Douglas.

Delon continued to work steadily throughout the Seventies and won the César for best film in 1977 for Joseph Losey’s mystery drama Monsieur Klein. The leading man also tried his hand at filmmaking and produced a number of movies before making his directorial debut in 1981 with Pour la Peau d’un Flic.

His career slowed in the 1990s and Delon announced his retirement from acting in 1997 following his performance in Jean Luc Godard’s neo noir Nouvelle Vague. However, the actor’s biggest box office success came later in 2008 when he returned to screens to play Julius Cesar in the comic book hit Asterix at the Olympic Games.

He was married to Nathalie Delon from 1964 to 1968 and they welcomed a son, Anthony, in 1964.

Delon started dating the Borsalino actor Mireille Darc in 1968. They separated in 1982 after 15 years together.

Two years earlier, The Velvet Underground singer, Nico, had claimed she had given birth to Delon’s son, which he denied and the child was adopted by his mother. In 1987, he began a romance with the model Rosalie van Breeman, who he had two children with, Anouchka and Alain-Fabien, and separated from in 2002.