‘French monument’ actor Delon dies aged 88
Alain Delon , the internationally acclaimed French actor who embodied both the bad guy and the policeman and made hearts throb around the world, has died aged 88, local media has reported.
With his handsome looks and tender manner, the prolific actor was able to combine toughness with an appealing, vulnerable quality that made him one of France’s most memorable leading men.
His children announced the death on Sunday in a statement to French national news agency Agence France-presse.
Earlier this year, his son Anthony had said Delon had been been diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma, a type of cancer.
Over the past year, Delon's fragile health condition had been at the heart of a family dispute over his care that gave rise to bitter exchanges through the media among his three children.
Upon news of his death, tributes started pouring in on social media platforms, and all leading french media switched to full-fledged coverage of his rich career.
French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute on X to “a French monument”, adding: “Alain Delon has played legendary roles and made the world dream. Melancholic, popular, secretive, he was more than a star.”
At the prime of his career, in the 1960s and 1970s, Delon was sought out by some of the world’s top directors, from Luchino Visconti to Joseph Losey.
In his later years, Delon grew disillusioned with the movie industry, saying that money had killed the dream. “Money, commerce and television have wrecked the dream machine,” he wrote in a 2003 edition of newsweekly Le Nouvel Observateur. “My cinema is dead. And me, too.”
But he continued to work frequently, appearing in several TV movies in his 70s.
Delon’s presence was unforgettable, whether playing mo rally depraved heroes or romantic leading men.
He first drew acclaim in 1960 with Plein Soleil, directed by Rene Clement, in which he played a murderer trying to take on the identity of his victims.
He made several Italian movies, working most notably with Visconti in the 1961 film Rocco And His Brothers, in which D el on port rays a self-sacrificing brother intent on helping his sibling. The movie won the Special Jury prize at the venice film festival.
The 1963 Visconti film Le Guepard (The Leopard) starring Delon won the Palme d'or, the highest honour at the Cannes Film Festival. His other films included Clement's Is Paris Burning, with a screenplay by Gore Vidal and Francis Ford Coppola among others; La Piscine (The Sinners), directed by Jacques Deray; and, in a departure, Losey's The Assassination Of Trotsky in 1972.
In 1968, Delon began producing movies - 26 of them by 1990 - part of a frenzied and selfassured momentum that he maintained throughout his life.
In 2019 Delon summed up his feelings during a gala event honouring him at Cannes Film Festival. “One thing I’m sure about is that if there's something I’m proud of, really, the only thing, it’s my career.”