PARIS, Aug. 18 – Actor Alain Delon, who died on Sunday aged 88, was France’s greatest seducer on screen.

To some, he was the sexiest man of the 20th century, perfectly playing the impeccably dressed, ice-cold killer popularized by the New Wave films of the 1960s.

Others considered the man, who often referred to himself in the third person and admitted to hitting a woman, a selfish chauvinist. Feminists were appalled by the lifetime achievement award he received at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.

His millions of fans from France to Japan, where Delon was revered as an idol of male beauty, were willing to overlook his faults.

The smell of sulfur and his angelic face also proved to be an irresistible combination for a long line of glamorous actresses who fell in love with him.

In a note to Delon on his 80th birthday, one of his oldest friends, Brigitte Bardot, also an icon of the 1960s, called him “an eagle with two heads… the best and the worst.”

Delon’s legend began in 1960 with the role of the pretty-boy killer and mysterious schemer in Purple Noon — later reissued as The talented Mr. Ripley — and Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard.

With his stunning portrayal of the silent killer in Jean-Pierre Melville’s The Samurai (1967).

Directors from Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino to Hong Kong’s John Woo all recognize that Delon gave his stylish killer an inner life that means a lot to him.

Angel and Demon

And then there were the affairs. Many ended in heartbreak and tragedy, including his long and stormy relationship with the German actress Romy Schneider, with whom he The swimming pool (1969).

“The love of my life” – as Delon repeatedly called her – was found dead in her home at the age of 43, less than a year after her son died in a freak accident impaled on a railing. The official cause of death was cardiac arrest.

While living out his “great passion” with Schneider, Delon reportedly fathered a son with fellow countrywoman, Velvet Underground singer Nico.

He always denied that the child was his. Nevertheless, Delon’s mother approached the boy, Ari Boulogne, who bore a striking resemblance to Delon, and insisted that he was his son. He died of a heroin overdose at the age of 60 in 2023.

“I was programmed for success, not for happiness. The two don’t go together,” said Delon, who claimed to have always defined himself through women.

“From them, from looking into the eyes of my first wife Nathalie, from Romy (actress and long-term partner) Mireille (Darc) or the mother of my children (Rosalie van Breemen), I drew the motivation to be who I am,” he said.

Nevertheless, two of his sons accused him of domestic violence; one of them said that Delon broke his mother’s eight ribs and her nose twice.

Delon denied this, but admitted to slapping women who had attacked him.

Traumatic childhood

He himself had a difficult childhood and was put in a children’s home by his mother for a while.

As a young soldier, he fought to keep Indochina French before being dishonorably discharged for theft.

Despite the mixed feelings he aroused, film historian Jean-Michel Frodon said that no other French actor in the last half century had had “an equal screen presence”.

French actor Vincent Lindon, who won the Best Actor award at Cannes in 2015, described Delon’s looks as “mesmerizing.”

“You can look at photos of him for hours,” he said AFP.

But Delon never made the leap to Hollywood, although he had a huge fan base in China and Japan, which later boosted sales of his perfume brand.

Links to the extreme right

His complicated private life repeatedly made headlines.

He not only played villains, he also associated with them. He was arrested in 1968 after his former bodyguard Stevan Markovic was found with a bullet in his neck.

The police suspected Markovic of having an affair with Delon’s wife Nathalie; the case attracted nationwide attention.

Before the case was finally dropped, a Corsican gangster who was friends with Delon spent a year in prison and was charged with murder before being released.

Around 2000, Delon effectively gave up the film industry and then appeared mainly on television. However, in 2008, the role of Julius Caesar in an Asterix film lured him back to the screen.

In later years, he became a polarizing figure through his support of the far-right Front National (later renamed Rassemblement National), whose founder Jean-Marie Le Pen he called a “dear friend.”

He caused further controversy in 2016 when he came to the aid of former minister Nadine Morano, who had described France as a “white country” that, in her view, did not want to become Muslim.

“She has the courage to say it,” said Delon. “I take my hat off to her. I don’t give a damn, I say what I think and I will continue to do so.”

In June 2019, he suffered a severe stroke and rarely left his property in the Loiret region of central France after that.

As he grew weaker, his three children began an open war over his property.

The three – Anthony, Anouchka and Alain-Fabien – initially filed a complaint accusing his Japanese partner and former caregiver Hiromi Rollin of trying to exploit their father.

When that case was dismissed, they turned against each other in January 2024, with Anthony accusing Anouchka, the favorite child, of taking advantage of her “weakened” father.

Delon said he would report his son to the police through a lawyer. — AFP