French cinema legend Alain Delon has died aged 88, his children Alain Fabien, Anouchka and Anthony announced in a statement.
In the message, sent to the French agency AFP, the three children explained that the death occurred “peacefully” in Alain Delon’s house in Douchy, in central France.
On behalf of the family, they asked that “their privacy be respected at this time of extremely painful mourning.”
After suffering a stroke in 2019, his public appearances had been few and far between and he lived on his estate in Douchy. What had become more public were the disagreements between his three children, who were deeply divided over his real state of health and how he should be cared for.
In 2019, she received an Honorary Palm at the Cannes Film Festival for her career achievement.
Although his film career spanned six decades, his most iconic roles, and those that catapulted him to fame, came in the 1960s and 1970s, from René Clément’s Plein Soleil in 1960, in the role of Tom Ripley, to Joseph Losey’s Monsieur Klein in 1976.
Born in the town of Sceaux in 1935, his childhood was marked by the divorce of his parents when he was 4 years old and the fact that he was raised by an adoptive family.
He began training to work as a butcher, but at the age of 17 he decided to advance his military service and found himself involved in the Indochina war.
On his return to France, he began to do some work and it was then that the actor Jean-Claude Brialy discovered him, in particular for his beauty, and took him to the Cannes Film Festival, where he received his first proposals.
He premiered it at the hands of director Yves Allégret in 1957 in ‘When Women Get Involved’.
In the 1960s it was raffled off by some of the most prestigious directors such as René Clément himself, Luchino Visconti (‘Rocco et ses frères’, with Annie Girardot in the cast and later ‘Le guépard’), Michelangelo Antonioni (‘L ‘éclipse’, alongside actress Monica Vitti), Henri Verneuil (‘Mélodie en sous-sol’, with Jean Gabin).
Subscribe to the Newsletter Cultivate from El MostradorJoin our community to find out the most interesting things from the world of culture, science and technology.