Cinema legend, instinctive actor with incandescent beauty but also an assumed reaction to an enormous ego: Alain Delon, the actor of “Plein soleil” and “Samouraï”, died on Sunday at the age of 88. His death shocked the world.
From Italy where he worked in the 1960s with filmmakers like Visconti to Japan where he was a star, the departure of the actor with the magnetic gaze sparked a wave of emotion.
His death was announced by his three children “Alain Fabien, Anouchka, Anthony, as well as (his dog) Loubo”, in a joint press release addressed to AFP, turning their back on months of highly publicized bickering. The actor, who suffered from lymphoma, died at his property in Douchy, in Loiret (center), about a hundred kilometers south of Paris.
“Mr Klein or Rocco, the Cheetah or the Samurai, Alain Delon played legendary roles, and made the world dream. Lending his unforgettable face to turn our lives upside down”, reacted on X President Emmanuel Macron, who greeted “a French monument.
“His disappearance creates an abysmal void that nothing and no one will be able to fill,” Brigitte Bardot, the last living legend of the French 7th art, told AFP.
“The ball is over”
No national tribute was immediately mentioned. During his lifetime, Delon refused this idea, saying in 2018 he wanted to be “buried like everyone else”. More precisely, on his property, near his dogs. The prefecture has given an agreement in principle.
Extremely rare in the cinema since the end of the 90s, the actor made the headlines in the summer of 2023 when his children filed a complaint against his companion Hiromi Rollin, sometimes described as his companion, suspecting abuse of weakness. Before fighting over the final resting place of the actor, weakened since a stroke in 2019.
Shortly before, in May 2019, he was in Cannes to receive an honorary Palme d’Or, between tears and speeches with testamentary accents. “It’s a bit of a posthumous tribute, but during my lifetime,” declared the actor. Festival director Thierry Frémaux praised Alain Delon’s “dazzling filmography” on Sunday.
“The ball is over. Tancredi has gone dancing with the stars…”, reacted Claudia Cardinale, his partner in “The Cheetah”, in a message sent to AFP.
In front of his house in Douchy, dozens of people came to leave bouquets of flowers after the announcement of his death.
Mixture of beauty and coldness
In tribute to the actor, several channels turned their schedules upside down to broadcast his greatest films, including RTS2 which broadcast Sunday evening “The Swimming Pool” (1969), an incandescent film which seals the reunion of the actor on screen with his former partner Romy Schneider.
Alain Delon had been a naturalized Swiss citizen since 1999. The director of the Cinémathèque Suisse, Frédéric Maire, also paid tribute to the man of the stage residing in the canton of Geneva. “It’s a myth of cinema that disappears as an actor, through his roles, but also as a producer,” he told Keystone-ATS.
Far from cerebral actors, Delon was an instinctive genius. He prided himself on never having worked on his technique and relied on his charisma, a unique blend of incandescent beauty and brittle coldness.
Assets to which Dior paid tribute on of one of the house perfumes.
The Delon myth
The most important filmmaker in his career was Jean-Pierre Melville, who directed him in two masterpieces, “The Samurai” (1967) and “The Red Circle” (1970).
These roles define the Delon myth, which he will exploit in many other thrillers subsequently: the virile and silent man of honor, forced to fight alone against forces beyond him.
This archetypal character will inspire directors from all over the world, such as the Hong Konger John Woo or the American Quentin Tarantino, even though the Frenchman has never made it into Hollywood.
For the Académie des César, Delon “had become an eternal icon of the seventh art, the incarnation of French cinema internationally”.
Ego and rivalries
From rivalry to rare collaborations (“Borsalino” in 1970 and “Une chance sur deux” in 1998), Delon’s career was built alongside that of another sacred monster, his friend Jean-Paul Belmondo. “Alain, one day you told me that you missed my father, today it is you who we will miss a lot,” reacted on Instagram Paul Belmondo, the son of “Bébel”.
But if the actor Delon was unanimously admired, the man was often criticized and considered unsympathetic. Some criticized him for his positions, in favor of his friend, the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, for the death penalty or against homosexuality, which he had described as “unnatural”.
His return to Cannes, in May 2019, to receive an honorary Palme d’Or, was also preceded by a controversy, with feminists contesting this honor.
This self-proclaimed right-wing man, nostalgic for the de Gaulle years, was also mocked for his ego and his habit of speaking about himself in the third person.
On social networks, the INA unearthed an extract from a 1996 program, where Alain Delon was questioned by Bernard Pivot. “And if God exists, what would you like, after your death, to hear him say to you, Alain Delon?”
Answer: “Since this is your greatest and deepest regret – I know it – come, I will take you to your father and your mother, so that for the first time, finally, you see them together.”
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats / afp
