The actor Alain Delon, a myth of French cinema, has died at the age of 88, his children Alain Fabien, Anouchka and Anthony announced in a statement.
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In the message, sent to the French agency AFP, the three children explained that the death occurred “peacefully” in Alain Delon’s house in Douchy, in central France.
On behalf of the family, they asked that “their privacy be respected at this time of extremely painful mourning.”
Stroke in 2019
After suffering a stroke in 2019, his public appearances were few and far between and he lived on his estate in Douchy. What had become most known were the disagreements between his three children, who were deeply divided about his real state of health and the way in which he should be cared for.
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He also starred in the films ‘A pleno sol’ and ‘El silencio de un hombre’.
In 2019, she received an Honorary Palm at the Cannes Film Festival for her career achievement.
Although his film career spanned six decades, his most iconic roles, and those that catapulted him to fame, came in the 1960s and 1970s, from René Clément’s Plein Soleil in 1960, in the role of Tom Ripley, to Joseph Losey’s Monsieur Klein in 1976.
Born in the town of Sceaux in 1935, his childhood was marked by the divorce of his parents when he was 4 years old. and the fact that he was raised by an adoptive family.
He began training to work as a butcher, but at the age of 17 he decided to advance his military service and found himself involved in the Indochina war.
The actor Jean-Claude Brialy discovered it
On his return to France, he began to do some work and it was then that the actor Jean-Claude Brialy discovered him, in particular for his beauty, and took him to the Cannes Film Festival, where he received his first proposals.
In the 1960s it was raffled off by some of the most prestigious directors such as René Clément himself, Luchino Visconti (‘Rocco et ses frères’, with Annie Girardot in the cast and later ‘Le guépard’), Michelangelo Antonioni (‘L ‘éclipse’, alongside actress Monica Vitti), Henri Verneuil (‘Mélodie en sous-sol’, with Jean Gabin).
Macron calls it a “French monument”
The announcement of the death of actor Alain Delon this Sunday has begun to generate reactions of tribute, One of the first was French President Emmanuel Macron, who described it as a “French monument.”
In a message posted on the X network, Macron recalled some of the characters that most marked his filmography: Mr. Klein, Rocco, the cheetah or the samurai.
“Alain Delon – the head of state stressed – played legendary roles and made everyone dream.”
Alain Delon and actress Monica Vitti in the film L’eclipse.
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“Melancholic, popular, secret, he was more than a star: a French monument,” concluded Macron, who illustrated his message with a photo of the actor in his younger years with the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in the background.
Jack Lang, who was Minister of Culture during the presidency of the socialist François Mitterrand, wanted to remember, In an interview with France Info radio, he spoke of the great friendship that united him to the man he describes as an “immense actor”, and the tribute that was organised for him at the Cannes Film Festival when he was head of the Ministry.
Lang said that although Alain Delon was well known to be a right-winger, he had a “relationship of respect and later affection” with François Mitterrand, to whom he paid tribute after his death in 1996.
