It is with great sadness that we report legendary French actor Alain Delon has died at the age of 88. Widely hailed as the most beautiful movie star of all time thanks to his ocean blue eyes and statuesque, sculpted cheekbones, Delon — star of Le Samourai, Plein Soleil, Rocco And His Brothers and much, much more — brought an insouciant cool to cinema on- and off-screen, and an ineffable capacity to convey the depths of a brooding soul in the level of those self-same eyes. Delon passed away at his home in Douchy, surrounded by his three children and family, on 18 August.
Born on 8 November 1935 to cinema projectionist (and later La Régina cinema director) father François Fabien Delon and pharmacist and cinema usher mother Édith Marie Suzanne Arnold, you could say that the movies ran in Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon's blood. After a turbulent series of school expulsions, spells in prison, and gang involvements in his early life, Delon's fortunes changed at the Cannes Film Festival in 1957, where he was spotted by David O. Selznick's talent agent Henry Wilson and offered a trial as an actor in Rome. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Following successful early romantic lead roles in the likes of Pierre Gaspard-Huit's Christine and Michel Boisrond's Weak Women and Way Of Youth, Delon's star status was truly cemented with a one-two punch of striking leading turns in René Clément's Plein Soleil (Purple Noon) and Luchino Visconti's Rocco And His Brothers in 1960. In the former, the first screen adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's cat-and-mouse thriller The Talented Mr. Ripley, Delon cleverly subverted his preternatural good looks as sociopathic social climber Tom Ripley, showing the world that those angular cheekbones were far from the only sharp edge the Frenchman possessed with a mercurial, ice-cool performance. In the latter, a biting work of Italian neorealism from moviemaking maestro Visconti, Delon seemingly drew on his own tumultuous upbringing to play Rocco, the focal point among five siblings each struggling through hard times after the death of their father.
After working with Clément and Visconti, Delon's star would continue to shine in a series of auteur driven pictures including Michelangelo Antonioni's smouldering romantic drama L'Eclisse, Visconti's historical epic The Leopard, and — perhaps most famously — Jean-Pierre Melville's Uber-stylised 1967 neo-noir crime thriller Le Samourai, in which Delon is utterly magnetic as sharply dressed assassin Jef Costello. These monolithic works of 20th century European cinema were joined by further eye-catching turns from Delon — who starred in 90 films over the course of a career spanning over half a century — in such films as Marianne Faithfull co-starrer Girl On A Motorcycle, La Piscine (which would later be remade by Luca Guadagnino in the form of A Bigger Splash), César award-winner Monsieur Klein, and Jean-Luc Godard's Nouvelle Vague. Even after formally announcing his retirement from acting in 1997, Delon couldn't resist the call of the cinematic canvas once more a decade later as he played Julius Caesar in 2008 live-action French family flick Asterix At The Olympic Games, which marked one of the increasingly reclusive star's final screen appearances.
Despite ill health in recent years, further familial tumult, and career-long controversies continuing to persist well into his twilight years, Delon — one of the most truly iconic figures, faces, and characters of cinema's first full century — experienced a real full-circle moment at the Cannes Film Festival back in 2019, where the Frenchman was honoured with the festival's prestigious Palme D'Honneur. Acknowledging his award as a posthumous tribute given whilst he was still alive, Delon said "I am going to leave, but I won't leave without thanking you." And for the films, the characters, and the cinematic legacy Delon leaves behind, we reciprocate that gratitude.
Conman, hitman, lover, fighter — whatever and whomsoever he played, we can all agree that Alain Delon played 'em as nobody else could have. Our thoughts are with his friends and family at this difficult time.