Alain Delon, French Cinema Icon, Has Died
He had retired in 2017, a difficult twilight for the actor who had dominated the big screen for over 30 years.
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Farewell to Alain Delon, icon of French and world cinema: he was 88 years old.
"Alain Fabien, Anouchka, Anthony, as well as his dog Loubo, are deeply saddened to announce the passing of their father," reads the statement from his children, released to AFP. "He passed away peacefully in his home in Douchy, with his children and family members at his side... The family asks you to respect their privacy in this extremely painful moment of mourning."
Delon retired from the scene in 2017 : "I am the age I am - he said -. I have had the career I have had. Now, I want to close the circle. By organizing boxing matches, I have seen men who regretted having fought one fight too many. For me, there will not be one too many."
Far more than the weight of the years and the horror of seeing his legendary faded beauty in the mirror, what undermined his will to live was a stroke (a fate shared with his eternal friend-rival Jean-Paul Belmondo) and then the diagnosis of lymphoma slowly insinuating itself into his lungs. As an unyielding fighter, the old lion had climbed the steps of Cannes in 2019 for an honorary Palme that compensated for the only Prix César obtained in his career.
Then he finally bowed to solitude, a secret companion that at various times in his life had accompanied him into the tunnel of depression. Alain Delon was born on November 8, 1935 in Sceaux in the Haute-Seine , he had taken Swiss citizenship in the 90s, but had long since retired to the estate of Douchy (on the Loire) where he buried his dogs (45 of them) and prepared the funeral chapel for himself and for the women and children who would want to find him, one last time.
After a turbulent life on and off the set, he tried to return to the theater sharing the stage with his former partner Mireille Darc and his young daughter Anouchka, he reconciled with his firstborn Anthony, he gave his friends most of the objects that marked his triumphs, he sold most of his properties. It was a difficult twilight for the actor who had dominated European cinema for over 30 years; Delon was an icon, a successful brand, a myth worthy of Hollywood stars.
Son of a small-time cinema owner and a pharmacist, he was abandoned by his divorced parents at just four years old. Given into foster care, he grew up as a rebellious youth, constantly punished at school, intolerant of discipline and of his mother's new family in which he did not fit in. At 17 he enlisted, prematurely, in the navy and ended up in Saigon, with a term extended to five years because he spent almost half of it in a prison cell. Finally discharged in 1956, he nestled in the bohemian Paris of Montmartre, doing a thousand jobs and risking falling into the worst company.
He is saved by his passion for a young actress (Brigitte Auber) and a chance meeting with Jean-Claude Brialy who, struck by his beauty, invites him to the Cannes Film Festival and encourages him to try his hand at a career in cinema. Restless as he is, the young man instead puts down roots in Rome, finding hospitality with the photographer Gian Paolo Barbieri, but refuses the proposal of the tycoon David O'Selznick who offers him an exclusive contract in Hollywood.
Instead he returns to Paris and accepts the proposal of Yves Allegret who chooses him for "Godot" with Edwige Feuillière and then proposes him to his brother Marc for "Fatti bella e taci". It is 1958 and on that set the young actor meets Mylène Demongeot (Brigitte Bardot's eternal rival in the star system of the 50s) and his friend and eternal rival, Jean-Paul Belmondo. His first films are far from successful, but they are enough to get him noticed by René Clement who in 1960 offers him the role of his life: the young Tom Ripley in "Plein Sable" based on the novel by Patricia Highsmith.
It is a real explosion, an artistic and commercial earthquake that in the life of Alain Delon is linked to the overwhelming passion for Romy Schneider, met two years earlier on the set of "L'amante pura". Together the two quickly conquer Paris, France, cinema, fame. Back in Italy, in the same year 1960, he finds artistic confirmation thanks to Luchino Visconti in "Rocco and His Brothers", then meeting Michelangelo Antonioni ("L'eclisse", 1962) and triumphing with "The Leopard" (Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1963). In the same year he fulfills his childhood dream of competing with Jean Gabin thanks to Henri Verneuil who directs him in "The Casino Jackpot" and introduces him to the "polar" genre (a cross between noir and detective story) that will be his trademark for his entire career.
The list of his films (and successes) for the next twenty years is impressive: just think of his partnership with Jean-Pierre Melville (from "Frank Costello" to "The Nameless"), the spectacular rivalry with Belmondo ("Borsalino"), the endless series of genre masterpieces directed by Jacques Deray, among which, in 1969, stands out his new artistic encounter with Romy Schneider (from whom he separated in life) in "The Swimming Pool". A versatile actor, with an athletic physique that he highlights in swashbuckling films such as "The Black Tulip" or "Zorro" by our own Duccio Tessari, a frenetic worker (more than 80 films as an actor, 30 as a producer, two as a director), Delon nevertheless maintains a secret passion for auteur cinema with memorable forays such as "The First Night of Quiet" by Valerio Zurlini (1972), "Mr. Klein" by Joseph Losey (1976), "Swann in Love" by Volker Schlondorff (1984), "Nouvelle Vague" by Jean-Luc Godard (1990).
Equally lush is his private life, with crazy loves (Nathalie Delon, Jill Fouquet, Romy Schneider, Nico, Dalida, Mireille Darc, Anne Parillaud, Rosalie Van Breemen), often neglected children (eight in the end, plus one never recognized), legal troubles in old age with his lover/carer Hiromi Rollin, recurring arguments between his children, dangerous passions (horses, boxing, gambling), risky friendships in the underworld and the mystery of the murder of his bodyguard, Stevan Markovich.
In politics he has always declared himself a conservative, he venerated General De Gaulle, he was a friend of Jean-Marie Le Pen, he received the Legion of Honor from Jacques Chirac, but among his great friends he has always counted men of the left from Luchino Visconti to Jack Lang, from Bernard Henri-Levy to Joseph Losey. The last time at the cinema, with a self-deprecating flash, he was a mocking Julius Caesar in "Asterix at the Olympic Games". But shortly after, as the testimonial for a fur brand in 2013, he already had the melancholy of old age on his face: "I have often thought about suicide and I can see the scene clearly - he said -; doing it is child's play. The difficult thing is to think so as not to take action".
(Unioneonline/D)
