Paris: French actor and film producer Alain Delon, who starred in some of the greatest European films of the 1960s and ’70s, has passed away at the age of 88, as per The Hollywood Reporter.
“Alain Fabien, Anouchka, Anthony, as well as (his dog) Loubo, are deeply saddened to announce the passing of their father. He passed away peacefully in his home in Douchy, surrounded by his three children and his family,” a statement from the family released.
Delon had been suffering from poor health in recent years and had a stroke in 2019.
“With a filmography boasting such titles as Luchino Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and The Leopard (1963), Rene Clement’s Purple Noon (1960), Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Eclipse (1962), Joseph Losey’s Mr. Klein (1976) and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai (1967) and The Red Circle (1970), Delon graced several art house movies now considered classics,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
His tense and stoic performances, frequently as alluring men, were characterised by abrupt outbursts of violence and emotion. He was often dubbed “the male Brigitte Bardot.”
Delon got few accolades in his lifetime despite having produced several dozen films and appearing in about 100. He won the French Cesar only once, for Bertrand Blier’s 1984 romance Our Story, in which he played an alcoholic who falls for a younger woman (Nathalie Baye). In 1995, he was given an honorary Golden Bear at the Berlinale and in 2019 an honorary Palme d’or at Cannes.
Delon was born on November 8, 1935, in Sceaux, a neighbourhood in southern Paris. His father, Fabien, owned a local movie theatre, while his mother, Edith, worked at a drugstore. After his parents split in 1939, he was placed with a foster home before attending a Catholic boarding school. He earned a trade degree and temporarily worked at his stepfather’s butcher business in the Paris district of Bourg-la-Reine.
Delon was called up for military service at the age of 17 and joined the French Navy.
Delon settled back in Paris in 1956, working odd jobs and frequenting the clubs and cafes of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, when he met Jean-Claude Brialy, who starred in such early New Wave movies as Claude Chabrol’s Le Beau Serge.
“Delon’s major breakthrough came in 1960 with Purple Noon, adapted by Clement (Forbidden Games) from Patricia Highsmith’s book The Talented Mr. Ripley. As the seductive antihero Tom Ripley, Delon radiated oodles of charisma and malice in a thriller set against a breathtaking Mediterranean backdrop. The film was a critical and box office success, with certain reviewers referring to Delon as “the new James Dean,” as per The Hollywood Reporter.
