The embodiment of the actor par excellence, a character as much as an artist, Alain Delon, who lived his art with an intensity without equal, died at the age of 88, according to a statement by his three children to Agence France-Presse.
French actor Alain Delon died at the age of 88, his three children announced Sunday morning in a joint statement to AFP. “Alain Fabien, Anouchka, Anthony, as well as (his dog) Loubo, have the immense sorrow of announcing the departure of their father. He died peacefully in his house in Douchy, surrounded by his three children and his family,” they affirm with one voice in the statement.
Everyone, close friends and admirers, today highlight the incredible career of the actor, who made films such as “Plein soleil” (1960), “Rocco and his brothers” (1960), “The Leopard” (1963), or “The swimming pool” (1969) into accomplished masterpieces.
Loubo, feeling that his father was leaving him, began to alarm everyone and he began to cry, this is how the signal was given that Alain Delon was going to draw the curtain on his life and that in the coming days they would leave together.
We must add the part that Alain Delon took in the design of the films in which he played, for the best – L’Insoumis (1964), by Alain Cavalier, Monsieur Klein (1976), by Joseph Losey -, and for the rest. But the artist’s work has passed through the filter of public opinion. A spectator born in 1940 will remember the blue-eyed ephebe who appeared more often than not in court; born in 1970, we remember the imprecator who proclaimed both his friendship for Jean-Marie Le Pen and his commitment to peace in New Caledonia.
Alain Delon was born on November 8, 1935 in Sceaux, in the Hauts-de-Seine, a prosperous suburb where his father ran a small cinema, the Régina, and where his mother, Edith, of Corsican origin, worked in a pharmacy. When he was 4 years old, his parents separated, and he very quickly found himself in boarding school in Issy-les-Moulineaux. The actor recounted that in one of the establishments from which he was regularly expelled, he had been part of the choir and that it had received a visit from Angelo Roncalli, apostolic nuncio and future Pope John XXIII, who had congratulated the young soprano Alain Delon.
At 15, the boy decided to leave for Chicago with a fellow student, but the two boys were caught in Châtellerault, in Vienne. Apprenticed to his father-in-law, a pork butcher in Bourg-la-Reine, Alain Delon obtained his professional aptitude certificate. He was sufficiently unhappy with his condition to seek to enlist. Since the air force could not accept him for several months, he chose the navy. In January 1953, at 17, Alain Delon signed a three-year contract and extended it by two in order to follow his fellow marine riflemen to Indochina, where he was sent to the theater of operations.
Back in France in 1956, he went back to Paris, where he was alternately a waiter and a strongman at Les Halles, while spending his nights in Pigalle. He got into Saint-Germain-des-Prés circles, seduced the actress Brigitte Auber, and became friends with Jean-Claude Brialy, who convinced him to go down to Cannes for the 1957 edition of the Festival.
Alain Delon was spotted by Henry Willson, a Hollywood agent specializing in handsome guys (Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter). Willson sent the young man to Rome, where he did a screen test in front of David O. Selznick, who offered him a seven-year contract, on condition that the Frenchman learned English.
The press had noticed the boy’s physique and presence, so much so that René Clément decided to offer him the role of Ripley in Plein soleil, which he was preparing to adapt from Patricia Highsmith’s novel. Filmed in 1959, alongside Maurice Ronet and Marie Laforêt, Plein soleil was an apprenticeship for Delon. René Clément was an actor’s director of irrefutable precision, he led Delon on the path of Tom Ripley’s perversion, making him a poisonous seducer.
The film had barely been released to great fanfare, in early 1960, when Delon, who had seduced the Italian count during their first meeting, began filming Rocco and His Brothers under the direction of Visconti. Even more than that of Ripley, the role of Rocco, the southern émigré who arrived in Milan with his tribe, was a challenge. Delon was dubbed, surrounded by an impressive cast (Renato Salvatori, Annie Girardot, Claudia Cardinale), embodying the character of an uprooted peasant who was the antithesis of his experience. He triumphed modestly, through self-denial and invention.
“Mr. Klein or Rocco, the Leopard or the Samurai, Alain Delon played legendary roles and made the world dream,” wrote the President of the Republic on X on Sunday, August 18. “Melancholic, popular, secretive, he was more than a star: a French monument,” added Emmanuel Macron. Follow the reactions live.
“Legend”, “sacred monster”… The political class, mainly on the right, salutes his “immense life in cinema”. “The legend is gone. Alain Delon leaves us orphaned from the golden age of French cinema that he embodied so well. It is a small part of the France that we love that leaves with him,” reacted Marine Le Pen, three-time National Rally candidate in the presidential election, on X.
The actor “will forever remain in the eyes of the world the French Man with a capital H,” wrote Eric Ciotti on X.
“He leaves behind masterpieces and the memory of the last sacred monster of French cinema,” added the leader of the LR senators Bruno Retailleau on the same social network X.
“There are samurai who are princes and actors who are a full sun,” praised the resigning Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire.
“It’s a relief for him, his illness was terrible,” reacted the former president of the Cannes festival, Gilles Jacob. “He was an incredible character who played a hundred different roles, but he arrived with his own suitcases, that is to say with this vivacity, this sobriety, this class,” declared Gilles Jacob. “I am sure that wherever he is, he is better,” added this figure of the Croisette.
“A prince of cinema,” for the former Minister of Culture, Jack Lang. “We had very close ties of trust and friendship,” confided the former minister. Jack Lang admired the man, but also the artist, sometimes applauded, sometimes jeered by a world of cinema, sometimes “very hard on him”. “We had made a point, when I was in charge as Minister of Culture, to pay him a huge tribute in Cannes where he had sometimes been acclaimed and later mistreated”, he explains.
“He was a charming, kind, funny and attentive guy”, says Patrick Chesnais. The actor remembers an episode at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007, after he lost his son in 2006. Alain Delon “saw” him in the street, then “he crossed, took me in his arms and hugged me for a long time without saying a word”, says Patrick Chesnais. “I was obviously very, very moved by this mark of gentleness, solidarity and affection”, he adds.
Interviewed by France Info, photographer Jean-Marie Périer, close to the star, had trouble hiding his emotion. “He’s a guy who really believed in his cinema,” he said. “He spent his life proving that he was something other than handsome and took a lot of risks.”
After being rewarded at Cannes in May 2019, Alain Delon sent AFP a letter in which he addressed his fans: “The day after this honorary Palme d’Or, I feel like thanking all those who have shown me their affection and sympathy in one way or another, and more.
As my journey draws to a close, I want to say it: I have known so many passions, so many loves, so many successes and failures, so many controversies, so many scandals, dark affairs, so many memories, so many missed appointments and impromptu meetings, so many ups and downs; that when the honors will be nothing more than vain and distant memories, there is only one thing that will shine by its constancy and longevity: you, you alone.
To you who have made what I am, and who will make what I will be, I had to tell you.
I say thank you, thank you, thank you.”
In an interview with “Le Monde” in 2018, Alain Delon had these words to compare himself to Jean-Paul Belmondo, the other legend to whom the press has long compared him. “I am an actor, Jean-Paul is a comedian. An actor plays, he spends years learning, while the actor lives. I have always lived my roles. I have never acted. An actor is an accident. I am an accident. My life is an accident. My career is an accident.”
She also sent her reaction to AFP. Claudia Cardinale paid a final moving tribute to the actor. “The ball is over. Tancredi has gone to dance with the stars…”, evoking Tancredi, the character he played in “The Leopard”, a cult film in which Claudia Cardinale co-starred. “I am asked to put it into words… but the sadness is much too intense. I join in the pain of his children, his loved ones, his fans…”.
“Per sempre tua (Forever yours), Angelica”, concluded Claudia Cardinale, signing with the name of her own character in the film.
On Instagram, the son of actor Jean-Paul Belmondo posted a photo of his father alongside Alain Delon, along with a short message: “Alain, one day you told me that you missed my father, today it is you who will be greatly missed”.
It was Alain Delon’s children who announced the actor’s death by sending a statement to AFP. “Alain Fabien, Anouchka, Anthony, as well as (his dog) Loubo, have the immense sorrow of announcing the departure of their father. He passed away peacefully in his house in Douchy, surrounded by his three children and his family”, they affirm in one voice in this statement.
“The actor of “Plein soleil” and “Le Samourai” has gone to join (the Virgin) Mary among his stars so dear to his heart. His family asks you to please respect his privacy, in this extremely painful moment of mourning,” the three children continued.
And this is not entirely anecdotal since the fate of Alain Delon’s dog caused a stir even before the actor’s death. The star had indicated on the show Thé ou Café that if he died before his dog, the veterinarian would put him down so that they could be buried together.
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