Actor Alain Delon, one of the biggest stars of European cinema since the 1960s, has died at the age of 88 after a long illness, French media reported on Sunday.

Delon overcame his difficult early years and took on leading roles in several major films. He became famous through two films by the Italian director Luchino Visconti: “Rocco and His Brothers” (1960) and “The Leopard” (1963).

His final years were overshadowed by a family dispute between his sons Anthony and Alain-Fabien and his daughter Anouchka over his care after a stroke in 2019; an affair widely covered by the French media.

Delon’s last major public appearance was the awarding of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2019.

French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to Delon on Sunday, calling him a “French monument.”

“(…) Alain Delon played legendary roles and made the world dream. He lent his unforgettable face to turn our lives upside down,” Macron wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Melancholic, popular, mysterious, he was more than a star: he was a French monument.”

Problem youth

Delon was born on November 8, 1935 near Paris.

He was placed in foster care at the age of just four after his parents separated and divorced.

Delon had a difficult childhood, ran away from home at least once and was expelled from boarding school several times.

At 17, he joined the Marines and served in Indochina, which was then under French rule.

After returning to France in the mid-1950s, he met French actor Jean-Claude Brialy and attended the Cannes Film Festival, where an American talent scout, perhaps attracted by Delon’s good looks and striking blue eyes, arranged a screen test for him.

Gangsters and contract killers

From there, Delon made his film debut in 1957 in “Quand la femme s’en mele” (“Send a Woman When the Devil Fails”).

His other films, in which he often played gangsters or contract killers, include Henri Verneuil’s 1963 film Mélodie en Sous-Sol (Any Number Can Win), Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 film The Godson, Borsalino (1970), in which he starred alongside fellow French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, and the 1969 erotic thriller La Piscine (The Swimming Pool).

In the latter film, he reunited with his real-life lover Romy Schneider, to whom he was engaged for four years before breaking up with her by letter, calling her the “love of my life” after the French-German actress’ tragic death in 1982.

Outspoken personality

Even off-screen, Delon did not hold back from expressing controversial views, including deploring the abolition of the death penalty and criticizing gay marriage, which was legalized in France in 2013.

In addition, he publicly defended the far-right Front National and was friends with its founder Jean-Marie Le Pen.

It was also known that Delon had friends in the underworld. The New York Times in a 1970 interview: “I don’t worry about what a friend does. Everyone is responsible for his own actions. It doesn’t matter what he does.”

Despite his poor health, however, he also expressed his strong support for Ukraine in the fight against the Russian invasion – and was awarded the country’s highest order of merit for this.

“Since the first day of the war, Delon has spoken a lot in support of Ukraine. For us, this is a symbol, this is important,” the Ukrainian embassy in Paris said in April.

tj/rc (Reuters, dpa, AFP)