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Alain Delon, the legendary icon of French and European cinema, has died at the age of 88.

With his attractive looks and gentle manner, the prolific actor managed to combine toughness with an appealing, vulnerable side, making him one of France’s most unforgettable leading men.

French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to “a French monument” on X.

“Alain Delon played legendary roles and made the world dream,” he wrote. “Melancholic, popular, mysterious, he was more than a star.”

His three children released a joint statement on Sunday: “Alain Fabien, Anouchka, Anthony and (his dog) Loubo are deeply saddened to announce the death of their father.”

“He passed away peacefully at his home in Douchy, surrounded by his three children and family (…) His family politely asks you to respect his privacy during this time of extremely painful grief.”

Born on November 8, 1935 in Sceaux near Paris, Delon rose to international fame in the 1960s with roles in film classics such as “Purple Sullivan” (1960), “The Leopard” (1963) and “The Lion” (1969).

At the height of his career in the 1960s and 1970s, Delon was the target of some of the world’s best directors, from Luchino Visconti to Joseph Losey.

He made several Italian films, most notably with Visconti in the 1961 film Rocco and His Brothers, in which Delon plays a self-sacrificing brother who tries to help his sibling. The film won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

His other films included Clément’s Is Paris Burning?, based on a screenplay by Gore Vidal and Francis Ford Coppola, The Sinners, directed by Jacques Deray, and, as a departure, Losey’s The Assassination of Trotsky in 1972.

In his later years, Delon became disillusioned with the film industry, saying that money had destroyed the dream. “Money, commerce and television have destroyed the dream machine,” he wrote in a 2003 edition of the weekly newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur. “My cinema is dead. And so am I.”

However, he continued to work frequently and appeared in several television films well into his seventies.

He briefly chaired the jury for the Miss France pageant, but resigned in 2013 following a disagreement over controversial statements, including criticism of women, LGBTQ+ rights and migrants.

Despite these controversies, he received a Palme d’Honneur at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, a decision that sparked further debate.

At a gala event in his honor in Cannes, Delon summed up his feelings about the meaning of his life: “One thing I know for sure: if there is one thing I am truly proud of, it is my career.”