France’s most enigmatic actor, Alain Delon, came from very humble origins.  He was born in Sceaux, France, in 1935, and led a troubled and rebellious childhood.  His parents separated when he was four and he was put into the care of foster parents who lived next to a prison.  He re-joined his mother when she re-married, serving an apprenticeship as a butcher, before enrolling in the French marines. 

After a posting in Indochina where he saw active service, Delon returned to France, working as a porter and waiter in Paris.  During this time, he made friends with aspiring young actors (including Jean-Claude Brialy) through whom he would meet Yves Allégret, the film director who gave him his first acting job, a small part in the 1957 film Quand la femme s'en mèle.  He then landed another small role in Marc Allégret’s film Sois belle et tais-toi, appearing along side Jean-Paul Belmondo, an actor whose popularity would rival Delon’s in the following decade. 

Delon’s first major role was in the 1958 film Christine.  Whilst making this film he met and fell in love with Romy Schneider, with whom he would have a five year engagement.  Stardom followed when Delon played the lead role in René Clement’s popular thriller, Plein Soleil, in 1959.  This film established Delon as the ice-cold yet angelically handsome criminal type, a stereotypical image he would find very difficult to break away from in future years.

It was at this time that he became a close friend of the celebrated Italian director Luchino Visconti.  Delon appeared in Visconti’s Paris production of the John Ford play Dommage qu'elle soit une putain, which ran for 8 months to great acclaim. Visconti offered Delon a lead part in his celebrated film Rocco et ses frères, which won the Prix Spécial du Jury at the Venice film festival. In 1963, Delon starred in another Visconti film, Le Guépard, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.  Further success came when the actor starred in Michelangelo Antonioni’s film L’Eclisse and Henri Verneuil’s Mélodie en sous-sol (appearing opposite Jean Gabin).

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, after an abortive attempt to make a name for himself in Hollywood, Delon became a rising star in French cinema, growing ever popular with the public.  He was increasingly cast as tough, taciturn gangsters or detectives, in such films as Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï and Le Cercle Rouge, Verneuil’s Le Clan des Siciliens , and Jacques Deray’s Borsalino (in which he co-starred with Jean-Paul Belmondo, by now his established big screen rival).  It was in Le Samouraï that Delon appeared along side his then wife, Nathalie, who bore him his first son.

In the mid-1970s, the actor’s career began to suffer a gradual decline, which was partly due to some excessive negative publicity in the press.  This revolved mainly around his perceived association with criminal gangs and his supposed complicity in the murder of his bodyguard.  Delon was also severely lambasted  when he expressed sympathies for extreme right-wing politics.

The actor would continue to appear in films, most notably in Monsieur Klein, which won the best film and best director Cesars in 1976, and which was arguably Delon’s best acting performance.   However, the actor no longer enjoyed the adulation of the public and the critics which he had been able to command in the previous decade.

As his acting career waned, Delon would turn his attention to more fruitful activities  He formed his own production company, making a number of successful films in which he starred.  In 1978, he founded his own goods company “Alain Delon Diffusion SA”, marketing perfumes, leather goods, fine wines, even spectacles, all over the world.  Being a keen sports enthusiast, he dabbled in horse-racing and organised boxing matches.  He is also a famously passionate collector of art.  In the 1980s, Alain Delon became a successful business man and amassed a substantial personal fortune, although he was often noted for his ruthlessness (he took his own son to court when he attempted to infringe his own brand).

Alain Delon’s relationship with his public and the media has been ambivalent and often hostile. However, few can deny that, in his heyday, he was the most popular actor in France and an international celebrity.  He retains a strong fan following and is still highly regarded by many.   In recognition of his exceptional contribution to French culture, he was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1990.

© James Travers 2003