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Alain Delon, the influential French actor who starred in European cinematic classics like Le Samourai and The Leopard, has died at the age of 88.
The actor’s children confirmed his death Sunday in a statement to AFP (via BBC), “Alain Fabien, Anouchka, Anthony, as well as (his dog) Loubo, are deeply saddened to announce the passing of their father. He passed away peacefully in his home in Douchy, surrounded by his three children and his family.”
A box office star and heartthrob actor in his native France and across Europe throughout the Sixties and Seventies, Delon appeared in acclaimed films like Luchino Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers and The Leopard, Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Eclisse, and Rene Clement’s Purple Noon — the first adaptation of the book The Talented Mr. Ripley, with Delon in the Tom Ripley role — early in his career.
After a brief turn in Hollywood starring in films like Once a Thief, Lost Command and Texas Across the River, Delon returned to France and then delivered his most enduring role in Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai, where Delon portrayed a quiet, methodical, fedora-wearing hitman. Delon’s sullen, lone wolf antihero would later inspire dozens in similar characters in films like Taxi Driver, The Driver, Drive, and John Wick.
In the Seventies, Delon would continue to star in crime flicks like Melville’s Le Cercle Rouge and Un Flic, as well as The Sicilian Clan and Mr. Klein, plus the international Spaghetti western Red Sun, the American spy film Scorpio, and the all-star Airport ’79: The Concorde.
French president Emmanuel Macron said on social media Sunday following news of Delon’s death, “Mr. Klein or Rocco, the Leopard or the Samurai, Alain Delon has played legendary roles and made the world dream. Lending his unforgettable face to shake up our lives. Melancholic, popular, secretive, he was more than a star: a French monument.”
Delon’s career as a marquee star began to wind down in the Eighties and Nineties, though his supporting role as Julius Caesar in the 2008 French comedy Asterix at the Olympics became his most successful film at the box office. That role also marked Delon’s last big-screen appearance where he didn’t portray himself.
In recent years, Delon’s decline followed a stroke and a reported bout with cancer, and earlier in 2024, his state of affairs became tabloid fodder as his children argued with each other in court over their father’s guardianship and his estate.
One of France’s most decorated actors, Delon over his career received a Cesar Award for Best Actor, an honorary Golden Bear from the Berlin International Film Festival, and the Honorary Palme d’Or from the Cannes Film Festival. The latter honor was met with criticism in 2019, as Delon later in life aligned with far-right groups and had a history of “racism, homophobia and misogyny,” as a petition protesting the Cannes honor claimed (via The Hollywood Reporter.)
“You don’t have to agree with me,” Delon later said when he accepted the award at the Cannes ceremony. “But if there’s one thing in this world that I’m sure of, that I’m really proud of — one thing — it’s my career.”
