Romy Schneider: Her desperate gesture to get Alain Delon back, a failure accompanied by a sad discovery

Romy Schneider: Her desperate gesture to get Alain Delon back, a failure accompanied by a sad discovery

Romy Schneider was born on September 23, 1938 in Vienna (Austria), 86 years ago to the day. Died on May 29, 1982 in Paris, she had a brilliant career in cinema, making a mark in particular in La Piscine (1969), alongside Alain Delon. They had met a few years earlier, on the set of Christine (1958). It was love at first sight for both of them. So much so that they quickly decided to get engaged. As we recently learned in a special edition of Parisian dedicated to the death of the Leopard, which occurred in August, the latter had promised to marry her, “if for three months in a row they didn’t argue“.

However, not everything went as planned. Those who lived in Tancrou, a small village in Seine-et-Marne, separated in the summer of 1963. A break-up initiated by Alain Delon, who would declare in particular this: “She comes from the social class (bourgeois family, editor’s note) that I hate the most in the world. She can’t help it, but unfortunately she is marked by it. In five years, I have not been able to erase anything that had been instilled in her for twenty years (…) There were always two Romy Schneiders in her. I loved one of the two Romys more than anything in the world, I hated the other just as much.” It is “by a letter of about ten pages that he had delivered to Hollywood“that he will announce to her the end of their romance.

Desperate, Romy Schneider immediately jumps on a plane, hoping to win him back as quickly as possible.

Alain Delon, his confidences about Romy Schneider

“But when she arrives at their apartment on Rue de Messine, in the 8th arrondissement (of Paris, editor’s note), she finds only a bouquet of flowers and a note“, said Bertrand Tessier, author of Delon & Romy, an impossible lovein 2010. Adding that Alain Delon, who had just met Nathalie, the mother of his eldest son Anthony, will keep “a feeling of guilt towards her“. This is why he will give an ultimatum to the director of La Piscine, Jacques Deray. By telling him this: “If Romy doesn’t play, I don’t make the film.“They will ultimately form a magnificent duo in this feature film, before reuniting in 1972 for The Assassination of TrotskyThe disappearance of the actress will prevent them from acting together again.

Alain Delon, despite his choice to leave her, will remain marked for life by their story. Declaring in particular this: “It was very beautiful and very pure. Romy Schneider was my age. Until now, the women I loved were ten years older than me. This time, it was not the same tobacco. I can say that it is my first great love: love at 20 is something you don’t forget. After that, it is never the same again“The actor lived until his death,”surrounded by portraits of Romy Schneider“, as explained The Parisian. Specifying that “In the living room of his Parisian apartment, placed in plain sight, were books of photos of them, young and sublime lovers.“. She will remain forever”his eternal fiancée“.