French cinema legend Alain Delon died at the age of 88, BGNES reported.
The children of the star - Alain Fabien, Anoushka, Anthony, as well as (his dog) Lubo, announced the death of their father. "Alain Delon died at his home in Duchy, surrounded by his family," his relatives said in a statement.
Alain Delon was first of all a man before he was an artist. He is the architect - not always consciously - of the incomparable construction of French cinema. Few actors have devoted themselves so intensely to their work. Early in his career, he gave his all in Under the Bright Sun (1960) and Rocco and His Brothers (1961). Next came The Stranger (1964) by Alain Cavalier, Joseph Losey's Mr. Klein (1976).
In 2017, Delon announced the end of his film career, during which he starred in more than 90 films.
The actor suffered a stroke in the summer of 2019, and since then his health has been steadily deteriorating. In recent years, the Frenchman rarely appeared in public, he looked very thin.
The artist's creativity always passed through the filter of public opinion. Alain Delon was never content to just do his job, unless it was to make the headlines. Court (and auction) rooms and racetracks were his realms, and everywhere he could boast of his blue blood - that of the stars.
But how can you be the patriarch of cinema when you were an unloved child?
Alain Delon was born on November 8, 1935 in Seaux, in Haute-de-Seine, a prosperous suburb where his father owned a small cinema - "Regina" and his mother, Edith, of Corsican origin, worked in a pharmacy. When he was 4 years old, his parents separated and he soon ended up in a boarding house in Issy-les-Moulineaux. The actor says that in one of the boarding houses, from which he was regularly excluded, he was a member of a choir that was visited by Angelo Roncalli, apostolic nuncio and future Pope John XXIII. The future pontiff congratulated the young soprano Alain Delon.
At the age of 15, the boy decided to run away to Chicago in the company of a classmate, but the two boys were caught in Chatellerault. Apprenticed to his father-in-law, a butcher in Bourg-la-Rhine, Alain Delon obtained a certificate of professional suitability. He is so dissatisfied with his situation that he decides to join the army. The Air Force didn't accept him for several months, so he chose the Navy. In January 1953, at the age of 17, Alain Delon followed his fellow Marines to Indochina, where he was sent to the center of operations.
The first roles
In 1956 he returned to mainland France. In Paris, he worked as a waiter at Les Halles and spent his nights in Place Pigalle. He infiltrates German circles, seduces the actress Brigitte Aubert and befriends Jean-Claude Brialy, who decides to take him to Cannes for the 1957 festival.
There, Alain Delon was noticed by Henry Wilson, a Hollywood agent specializing in the search for beautiful young men (Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter). Wilson sent the young man to Rome, where he auditioned for producer David O. Selznick, who offered him a seven-year contract on the condition that the Frenchman learn English. Delon returned to Paris and at the same time accepted an offer from Yves Alegre - the role of a petty bandit in Quand la femme s'en mêle (1957). “I wasn't that interested. So Eve had to fight not only with her producers to get me, but with me as well. In fact, I agreed to be photographed to please him," explains Delon a little later.
A series of minor films followed: Sois belle et tais-toi (1958) by Marc Alegre, brother of Yves; Pierre Gaspard-Hui's Christine (1958), on the set of which he met and fell in love with Romy Schneider; and Michel Boirond's Faibles Femmes (1959).
The press noticed the boy's appearance and presence to such an extent that René Clemens decided to offer him the role of Ripley in the film "Under the Bright Sun". Gradually, the young star - a seductress - established her international reputation.| BGNES
